News

A Chinese professor at Yale University believes the acquisition of control over Bank of East Asia by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and its financial partners will be the first of many by Chinese banks.

Commercial Bank of Ceylon's Islamic banking unit has opened a dedicated service point for 'Sharia Compliant Banking' at its Akkaraipattu branch.

City Union Bank hopes to register a 20-30 percent growth this fiscal amid challenging times. "We hope to maintain a growth rate between 20-30 per cent this year. At the beginning of last fiscal we thought the economic condition would improve during the first two quarters of the current fiscal. But going by the current trend we think the economy would hit the growth path during the beginning of the next financial year," said the the bank's managing director, N. Kamakodi. Announcing the bank's annual results for the year 2011-12, Kamakodi said the net interest margin is expected to go down by 10-20 basis points from the last year's level of 3.4 per cent. For the 2011-2012 fiscal, the bank posted an after-tax profit of Rs.280.25 crore on a total income of Rs.1,903.90 crore, up from Rs.215.05 crore and Rs.1,219.41 crore logged during 2010-11. The bank's total business was at Rs.28,563 crore as against Rs.22,243 crore done during 2010-11. For the period under review, City Union Bank's net non-performing assets scame down to 0.44 per cent from 0.52 per cent as on March 31, 2011. According to Kamakodi, the bank's profit is higher by Rs.10 crore last fiscal as the provisions towards doubtful debts came down to around Rs.57 crore from Rs.67 crore during fiscal 2010-11. On the restructuring of advances, Kamakodi said the bank had restructured only six loan accounts last year involving a total amount of Rs.38.63 crore. "The overall restructured loan portfolio is around Rs.268 crore, down from Rs.533 crore three years before,"  Kamakodi said. "Only Rs.13 crore has become bad out of our restructured accounts during the past three years. Ninety per cent of our loan book is covered by collateral security," Kamakodi added. For more, click here.

DongA Bank generated a pretax profit of VND500 billion or US24 million in the first four months of this year.

The non-performing loan ratio in the first quarter for China's commercial banks went down by one percent from last year at 0.9 percent.

VietinBank will conclude a 20% stake sale to a foreign strategic partner in in the fourth quarter.

AMMB Holdings pre-tax profit for the financial year ended March 31 surged to RM2.082 billion from the RM1.865 billion posted the previous year.

A Japanese bank frozen halted US$2.6 billion assets ofthe Iranian government after a U.S. court order.

The government again goes to bat for small businessmen.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia posted a net profit of US$1.69 billion for the first three months of 2012.

Bank Simpanan Nasional increased its net income for financial year ended Dec 31, 2011 to RM1.032 billion or US$332 million.

Hong Leong Financial Group increased its earning by a 49.2% increase in earnings to RM394.77mil in the third quarter ended March 31.

Lack of new loans continue to haunt China's four biggest banks in the first two weeks of May.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ) will triple the size of its banking network in China.

While HSBC Malaysia had been growing in the last two years and was looking at its cost base very carefully, it has yet to fully penerate the Malaysian market.

An Indonesian bank will build on the success of its mobile banking program.