Maybank, Southeast Asia’s fourth largest bank by assets, today announced that it posted higher earnings for its FY2021 ended December 2021 with profit before tax (PBT) rising 25.8% y-o-y to RM10.89 billion ($3.5 billion), compared with the RM8.66 billion a year earlier. Net profit rose to RM8.10 billion, 24.9% higher than the RM6.48 billion recorded a year earlier.
The better results were driven by improving regional economic outlook that supported the group’s higher operating income and reduced impairment losses by 36.6% as it had taken pre-emptive provisioning for potentially bad loans and financial investments since the pandemic started in 2020.
Net operating income grew 2.8% to RM25.45 billion, tracking Malaysia’s economic growth of 3.1% in 2021. This was achieved on the back of a 14.6% y-o-y increase in total net fund based income to RM19.09 billion as a result of stronger loan growth as well as robust improvement in current account and savings accounts (CASA), which helped net interest margin (NIM) expand 22 bps Y-o-Y. It was, however, partially offset by a 21.6% decline in net fee based income to RM6.36 billion mainly from lower net gain in investment income and marked-to-market losses on the fixed income portfolio held by its insurance unit due to rising yields.
Growth in costs, meanwhile, was contained at 2.6%, well below income growth, resulting in pre-provisioning operating profit coming in higher at RM13.93 billion from RM13.54 billion a year ago.
Maybank has declared a single-tier second interim dividend of 30 sen per share, comprising an electable portion of 7.5 sen per share under its Dividend Reinvestment Plan. This brings full-year dividend to 58 sen per share, translating into a payout ratio of 84.5% or RM6.84 billion.
Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa, Maybank’s chairman notes that the group managed to remain resilient and delivered a commendable performance despite the challenging environment, as a results of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“While we are witnessing gradual recovery regionally supported by the resumption of more economic activities, improving vaccination rates and accommodative policies, we will stay ahead in managing key risks and any resurgence in Covid-19 cases. With the completion of our first year under the M25 Plan, we are cautiously optimistic that we can accelerate our ambitions this year for our three strategic priorities, namely digital, sustainability and new value drivers,” he says.
Adding on, group president and CEO Dato’ Sri Abdul Farid Alias says, “Our financial strength and resilience has been a result of our focus in building strong capital, liquidity, credit and risk management practises Group-wide over the years, which has helped us overcome this pandemic and enabled us to support our customers in need.”
“While lingering Covid-19 concerns remain in 2022 due to the recent rapid increase in cases, the upside is that many have been fully vaccinated and we are learning to live with the new virus variants. Maybank will remain steadfast in pursuing its M25 ambitions to enable meaningful and lasting value creation,” he adds.
Photo: The Edge Singapore
