Bank ABC Islamic posts Q2, H1 profit

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bank ABC Islamic reported profits for its second quarter and half-year 2021, which according to the bank “reflects its success in returning to normal performance after absorbing the one-off exceptional fraud-related impairment in 2020.”

Hammad Hassan, Managing Director of Bank ABC Islamic, said, “The bank’s performance in the first half of the year is reassuring.”

He said the bank has been able to recover to its normal performance after it has absorbed the impact of fraud-related credit costs of 2020.

“Whilst the top line continues to be adversely impacted by a combination of lower profit rate environment and a slowdown in the business activity not having resumed to pre-pandemic level, the bank’s net profitability showed growth on a year-on-year basis, as a result of stability in the credit portfolio and positive macroeconomic outlook as compared to last year.

He added: “The operating environment is still not back to normal but there is positive hope for recovery as vaccination programs across countries and regions are gaining traction.

We remain cautiously optimistic about some pick up in market activity after the summer and as we go into the next year.”

Q2 results Net profit for the second quarter was US$8.8 million compared to US$8.7 m in the same quarter a year ago. Total operating income was US$9.7 m compared to US$9.9 m for the same period of last year. Allowances for credit losses for the period were a write-back of US$0.6 m compared to US$0.4 m reported during the same period last year.

Operating expenses were US$1.5 m, compared to US$1.4 m for the same period of last year.

H1 results Net profit for the first six months was US$19.2 m compared to US$14.5 m reported in the first six months of last year.

Total operating income was US$21.5 m compared to US$ 23.4 m for the same period of last year, 8.1% lower than the same period last year mainly on account of low-profit rate environment and slightly lower fee income. Allowances for credit losses for the period were a writeback of US$1.3 m compared to a charge of US$5.1 m reported during the same period last year.

Operating expenses were US$3.3 m compared to US$3.6 m for the same period of last year, 7.5% lower than the same period last year as a result of cost rationalization programmes and staff/client activity not having reverted to pre-pandemic level.

Total assets stood at US$1.998 billion as of June 30, 2021, compared to US$2.314 bn at 2020 year-end.

The capital adequacy ratio is 36.2%, predominantly Tier 1, which totalled 35.2%.