Egypt's AlexBank – a member of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo Group – has crossed for the first time one billion Egyptian pounds ($112.6 million) in a full-year net profit after income tax. The 92 percent increase in Net Profit y-o-y is backed by a strong improvement in all the business divisions' including lending activities in all segments, from corporate to SMEs till retail and microfinance, alongside. Net Profit before tax grew 69 percent y-o-y to reach 1.814 million pounds. Net Income increased 23 percent y-o-y to reach 3.315 million pounds, reflecting a solid growth of "core banking income" net interest income and net fees and commission income. Net interest income grew 22 percent to reach 2.788 million pounds, boosted by increased lending activity and effective liability management. Net fees and commission income grew 28 percent y-o-y, mainly owing to expanded business volumes across all services. The quality of the portfolio has been enhanced; the NPL level decreased by 141 million pounds (-9.2%) due to upgrades in customer creditworthiness classifications and write-offs, which resulted in a remarkable improvement of the NPL ratio. Cost of Risk enhanced drastically to record 0.45 percent in 2015 versus 1.2 percent in 2014. "Net Loans and advances (Performing and Non-performing) to customers increased by 17.8 percent to reach 24.8 billion pounds, mainly driven by increase in the gross performing corporate loans of 2,315 million pounds or 23.3 percent (increase in corporate loans by 23.1 percent, SME by 27 percent and small business 19.6 percent), along with the increase in gross performing Retail loans up by 1.506 million pounds or 12.7% percent (of which increase in microfinance by 52 percent)." The lender said in a statement. Customers' deposits grew by 974 million pounds 2.7 percent y-o-y to reach 37,566 million pounds, mainly in retail (2.5 percent) and corporate (3.3 percent). Loan/Deposit ratio increased to 66 percent, compared to 57.6 percent at the end of 2014. By the end of 2015 Alexbank enjoyed a comfortable liquidity position and displayed a solid Capital Ratio of 13.7 percent, which indicates a substantial capital buffer able to support its organic growth plans.
