November 30 (SeeNews) - Croatia's 21 credit institutions booked an overall profit of 5.0 billion kuna ($687 million/ 662 million euro) in the first nine months of this year, the central bank said.
It did not give comparative figures in a nine-month report on the performance of the banking system issued on Tuesday, but a year ago it said that credit institutions generated a profit of 4.0 billion kuna in the first nine months of 2021, up 59.3% year-on-year.
The return on assets (ROA) was 1.3% in January-September 2022, slightly up rom 1.2% at the end of 2021, while return on equity (ROE) rose from 8.8% to 10.2%.
In the first nine months of 2022, total assets of credit institutions reached 551.4 billion kuna, up by 50.6 billion kuna or 10.1% compared to December 2021.
The increase in total loans and advances of 9.0% and a decrease in non-performing loans (NPLs) of 17.1% resulted in a further decrease in the share of NPLs in total loans from 4.3% at the end of 2021 to 3.3% at the end of September 2022.
The share of NPLs fell in both the portfolio of loans to non-financial corporations (from 9.9% to 6.5%) and in the portfolio of loans to households (from 6.6% to 5.5%).
The key indicators of banking system capitalisation remained high in the first three quarters of 2022, the central bank said.
The total capital ratio of the banking system edged down from 25.9% at the end of 2021 to 24.0% at end-September.
All credit institutions boasted total capital ratios in excess of the minimum prescribed level of 8%.
Credit institutions' liquidity measured by the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) remained high. At the end of September 2022, all credit institutions met the prescribed minimum liquidity requirements, and the average LCR stood at 198.8%.
(1 euro = 7.549 Croatian kuna)