KB, Shinhan post hefty earnings

KB Financial Group and Shinhan Financial Group reported robust earnings in 2011 on the back of their policy to seek management efficiency.

KB Financial posted 2.37 trillion won ($2.07 billion) in net profit last year. Its total assets came to 361.6 trillion won, up 28.1 trillion won from a year earlier.

Its flagship KB Kookmin Bank saw its assets reach 276.7 trillion won and KB Kookmin Card recorded 13.4 trillion won.

Shinhan Financial, which owns the nation’s largest credit card firm, posted 3.1 trillion won in net profit.

In particular, its non-banking units such as Shinhan Card and Shinhan Capital accounted for 38 percent of the financial group’s total earnings.

Meanwhile, according to the Financial Supervisory Service, Korean banks’ 2011 earnings came to about 12 trillion won, up 29.2 percent from 9.3 trillion won a year earlier.

Noticeably, their earnings from service fees, including those on transactions via automated teller machines, marked an all-time high of 4.9 trillion won last year, compared with 4.4 trillion won in 2010.

Their former record earnings in the service charge sector was 4.7 trillion won, which was posted in 2007.

(kys@heraldcorp.com)