Brac Bank Ltd (BBL) reported a Tk141 crore profit after tax for the first quarter of 2021, despite experiencing economic fallout due to the Covid-19 pandemic since March last year.
The net profit was a 31% year-on-year (YoY) growth, while its earnings per share (EPS) stood at Tk1.06 on a standalone basis and Tk0.93 on a consolidated basis.
The bank was able to reorganize its operations very early on to embrace new health and safety measures, roll out a virtual operations platform and significantly expand digital customer solutions, it said in a press release issued on Thursday.
This allowed them to continue to serve its customers during the pandemic and strengthen its position to counter the subsequent waves of the pandemic.
Their customer deposits grew by 4% YoY while the CASA mix improved from 43% to 55% reflecting a successful deposit mobilization and interest rate management strategy.
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BBL was very cautious in growing its customer loan portfolio in pandemic years with a 0.4% YoY net growth.
While SME lending grew at 18% YoY, retail lending picked up in Q1’21 and the bank was very selective in growing loans in the corporate and commercial business.
Compression in interest margin continued throughout the entire banking industry after the introduction of lending rate cap at 9% in April 2020.
Despite this, Brac Bank ended the first quarter with a spread of 4.8% with better cost of deposit management.
The bank’s Q1’21 non-performing loan (NPL) ratio was 4.4%, up by 0.6% YoY, while the NPL coverage ratio improved to 119% to build a reserve against potential bad debt challenges arising out of the pandemic.
BBL reported a consolidated Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) of 15.12% for Q1’21 with 95% Tier-1 Capital, the highest Tier-1 capital ratio in the industry.
Brac Bank’s Managing Director and CEO Selim RF Hussain; DMD and CFO M Masud Rana, DMD and COO Sabbir Hossain; DMD and Head of Corporate Banking Tareq Refat Ullah Khan; and other senior business heads presented the financial results at a virtual disclosure, the release added.
