IBK Q3 net rises 12%

South Korea’s state-run Industrial Bank of Korea said Friday that its third-quarter earnings rose 12.5 percent from a year earlier due to an increase in interest income.

Net income amounted to 410.3 billion won ($369.3 million) in the July-September period, compared with 366.3 billion won the previous year, the state-run bank, which mostly caters to small and medium enterprises, said in a regulatory filing.

Compared with three months earlier, net profit declined 14.7 percent as the bank recorded smaller gains by selling bad debts in the third quarter.

The third-quarter bottom line fell short of the market consensus of 458 billion won in a poll of analysts by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.

Revenue rose 17.1 percent on-year to 4.53 trillion won and operating profit gained 24.4 percent to 488 billion won, it added.

Shares of IBK closed at 14,500 won on the main bourse, up 3.57 percent from Thursday’s close. The result came out after the market close.

IBK’s net interest margin, a key barometer of profitability, reached 2.63 percent in the third quarter, down 0.03 percentage point from the second quarter, due mainly to rises in funding costs. 

(Yonhap News)