Chinatrust net income up 379% in first five months

CEBU, Philippines – Chinatrust (Philippines) Commercial Bank Corporation announced a 379 percent increase of its net income for the first five months of this year, despite the global economic slowdown.

The bank’s president Mark Chen recently disclosed that its net income after tax reached P85.72 million from January to May this year, a whopping 379.16 percent surge over the P30.7 million loss it recorded in the same period last year.

He said the rise in net income can be attributed to the 17.14 percent growth in interest income which amounted to P127.78 million, and the steady rise in other income which grew by P43.42 million, or an increase of 54.43 percent.

Likewise, the bank's total deposits grew by P3.7 billion on a year-on-year basis, or an increase of some 24.64 percent from the P15.02 billion recorded as of end-May of 2008 to P18.72 billion for the same comparative period this year.

As a result, the bank's aggregate resources increased to P25.71 billion this year compared to the P22.13 billion recorded the previous year.

"The Bank never wavered in its belief that opportunities exist even amidst unfavorable market conditions," said Chen.

"Through effective risk management and being selective in the markets that it served, Chinatrust was able to record substantial growth in its income despite the adverse economic conditions that continued to prevail world-wide," he added.

Even more compelling was the growth that the Bank experienced in its corporate loan portfolio, which increased by a phenomenal 68.70 percent, from P5.52 billion as of May, 2008 to P9.32 billion for the same period this year.

"What made the increase in the Bank's loan portfolio more significant was the marked improvement in the bank's non-performing loans, which as a percentage of total loans went down from 4.81 percent to 3.61 percent said. —Ehda M. Dagooc