Steady growth in Seylan Bank’s 1Q2018 amidst challenges
View(s):Seylan Bank made a steady start in 2018 by posting a post-tax profit of Rs. 1,053 million in Q1 despite less than ideal market conditions.
Net interest income increased by 17.21 per cent as the volume growth outperformed the impact arising from the narrowing of NIMs, the bank said in a media release.
Net fee and commission income witnessed a growth of 14.61 per cent to reach Rs. 995 million in 1Q 2018, against Rs. 868 million for the comparative period. Initiatives put in place to harness fee generating business across various customer and market segments such as card related income, trade finance related fee income and fees from guarantees, remittances is progressing rapidly as reflected by the increases shown in fee based income.
Other operating income comprising gains from trading, gains from financial investments, gains on foreign exchange and other income were reported as a net gain of Rs. 366 million compared to net gain of Rs. 238 million in 1Q 2017.
The bank said it continued to focus on widening the roll-out of lean initiatives, workflow methods and automation across the bank in its pursuit towards rationalising expenditure on key controllable cost lines and inculcating a culture of working smarter across all the functions by the employees.
Loans and advances portfolio of the bank dropped marginally by 3.01 per cent to 289,302 million during the 1Q 2018 amidst rising interest rates.
The overall deposit base recorded a marginal growth of 1.24 per cent to Rs. 310,904 million by 1Q 2018 and a shift from low cost CASA to term deposits was noted which is partly due to increase in interest rates.