All commercial banks operating in Bangladesh booked Tk 26,581 crore operating profit last year, helped by higher credit growth to private sector and lower costs on deposits.
Of the total amount, private banks made Tk 20,370 crore profit, public banks Tk 3,737 crore and foreign banks Tk 2,474 crore, according to Bangladesh Bank.
Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) earned the highest operating profit of Tk 2,482 among the banks last year followed by National Bank Limited (NBL) Tk 1,216 crore, Southeast Bank Tk 906 crore, BRAC Bank Tk 900 crore, UCBL Tk 801, EBL Tk 759 crore, DBBL Tk 750 crore and Mercantile Bank Tk 711 crore.
Among the public banks, Sonali made Tk 1,100 operating profit, Janata Tk 1,000, Agrani Tk 950 crore, Rupali Tk 537 crore, BDBL Tk 108 crore and BASIC Bank Tk 42 crore.
Standard Chartered Bank made the highest operating profit of Tk1,485 crore among the foreign banks followed by HSBC Tk 583 crore, State Bank of India Tk 160 crore, Citibank N.A Tk 109 crore, Woori Bank Tk 93 crore, Bank Al-Falah Limited Tk 42 crore and Habib Bank Limited Tk 2 crore.
The operating profit of problem-ridden Farmers Bank slumped to Tk 26 crore in 2017 from Tk 92 crore profit a year earlier. “Banks profit soars last year on higher interest earnings, trade finance, capital market investment and business diversification,” senior banker Nurul Amin told The New Nation yesterday. He said many banks diversified their business last year amid falling lending rates, which also helped them to book a good profit.
Nurul Amin pointed out that banking sector has been able to maintain a surplus liquidity last year. The situation helped lowering operating cost of banks on deposit purpose and thereby led to a positive impact on their profits. Banks made Tk 21,567 crore operating profit in 2016 and Tk 21,683 crore in 2015. “Operating profit of most banks soared last year due mainly to boosting private sector credit that helped banks to earn remarkable amount from interest income. Besides, banks have made good earnings from export and import trade that also grew last year,” former Bangladesh Bank (BB) Deputy Governor Dr Khandaker Ibrahim Khaled told The New Nation on Friday.
Private sector credit growth stood at over 18 percent during the July-December period of the last year beating the target of 16.2 percent set by the central bank for the period.
Dr Khandoker Ibrahim Khaled said, the profit was higher than his expectation as nothing was going right in banking sector with many banks were ailing. “Lending growth helped to increase interest income of most banks and thereby they made profit beating expectation. The final profit figures will come down when they meet regulatory requirements and tax obligations,” he added.
