February 6 (SeeNews) - BRD [BSE:BRD], Romania's third-largest bank by assets, said on Thursday its consolidated net profit totalled 1.528 billion lei ($353 million/320 million euro) last year, compared to 1.545 billion lei in 2018.
Net profit was driven by strong revenue growth and solid risk profile, BRD, part of France's Societe Generale group, said in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB.
The ratio of BRD's non-performing loans (NPLs) fell to 3.1% at the end of December 2019, from 4.6% a year earlier, while the coverage of NPLs with provisions edged down to 74.0%, from 74.2% at end-2018.
The net cost of risk fell to 223.8 million lei last year from 230 million lei at the end of 2018, due to strong recovery performance, exceptional insurance indemnities payout and good quality loan production.
BRD’s net banking income amounted to 3.17 billion lei at the end of 2019, compared to 2.98 billion lei a year earlier, reflecting strong commercial dynamics across all customer segments. Net interest income grew to 2.02 billion lei in 2019 from 1.87 billion lei in 2018, favourably influenced by continued expanding volumes, structure shifts and supportive interest rate environment.
The net loans’ outstanding amount to customers increased to 29.5 billion lei at end-2019 from 28.9 billion lei at end-2018, on all business lines, mainly driven by growth of loans to individuals and large corporate customers.
Retail savings grew by 5.7% year-on-year. The ratio of net loans to deposits was 68.4% at the end of 2019, up by 2.7 percentage points compared to end-2018.
"2019 was an excellent year for BRD [...]. We delivered high profitability thanks to rising revenues, strong risk profile and robust commercial performance on both retail and corporate segments, while continuing the implementation of our business transformation plan," BRD Group CEO Francois Bloch said.
The capital position of BRD remained strong with total capital ratio of 20.1% as of end-December 2019, compared to 21.1% a year earlier.
Besides the bank, the BRD Group in Romania includes BRD Sogelease IFN, BRD Finance IFN and BRD Asset Management SA.
The overall net profit of the BRD Group at end-2019 was 1.49 billion lei, compared to 1.56 billion lei at end-2018. The group's total assets rose to 57.7 billion lei as of end-2019, from 55.7 billion lei at end-2018.
BRD was the fourth largest lender by assets in Southeast Europe at the end of 2018, and the third biggest in Romania, according to the 2019 edition of SEE Top 100 Banks ranking published by SeeNews.
Societe Generale is present in Romania since 1980, being the only significant bank from Western Europe that was present in the country during the communist period. In 1999, it took part in the process of privatization of Banca Romana pentru Dezvoltare and acquired 51% of the bank’s share capital.
BRD - Groupe Societe Generale operates a network of 648 units in Romania and has a leading position on the card market with approximately 2.4 million cards and a network acceptance of some 29,000 POS and almost 1,500 ATMs.
Shares of blue chip company BRD traded 0.61% lower at 16.3 lei by 1029 CET on Thursday on the BVB.
(1 euro=4.7768 Romanian lei)
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