[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s nine financial holding firms saw their combined net profit jump last year, thanks to a sharp gain in interest income, government data showed on April 2.
The combined net profit of the nine firms, including KB Financial and Shinhan Financial, stood at 10.8 trillion won (US$10.20 billion) last year, up 35.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service.
The FSS attributed the gain to “improved net interest margin and stock rally.”
Korean banks enjoyed hefty profits last year on strong sales of mortgage loans.
The combined capital adequacy ratio of the nine financial holding firms rose 0.08 percentage point on year to 14.41 percent last year.
The ratio of loans classified as substandard or below was 0.82 percent last year, down 0.16 percentage point from a year ago, according to the data.
By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (
ssh@heraldcorp.com)