UBL posts Rs7.5b profit

KARACHI:

United Bank (UBL) posted consolidated earnings of Rs7.5 billion for Jan-Mar, which is down 1.8% from the first quarter of 2015, a securities filing said on Tuesday.

The result was above market expectations. The bank also announced a cash dividend of Rs3 per share.

Although net interest income (NII) of UBL rose 3.6% year on year, heavy provisions put a dent into after-provisions NII. Net provisions against loans and advances in Jan-Mar more than doubled from the preceding year to Rs1.6 billion. As a result, post-provisions NII clocked up at Rs12.2 billion, slightly down from Jan-Mar 2015.

The bottom line of UBL received substantial support from non-interest income that surged 31.2% year on year to over Rs9 billion in Jan-Mar. The main reason for the rise in non-interest income was the unusually high gain on the sale of securities. It amounted to Rs3.9 billion, up 97.5% from a year ago. Fee, commission and brokerage income also registered a rise of 8.6% to Rs3.6 billion in Jan-Mar.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th,  2016.

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