Banking | BNU Macau closes half-year with net results up 17 percent

BNU Macau closed the first half of 2016 with year-on-year growth of 17 percent in net results, which amounted to MOP278.57 million, said its chief executive officer Pedro Cardoso.
Cardoso told Macauhub this week that all key banking business indicators showed improvements when half-years were compared. He highlighted, for example, that the indicator for the ratio between support staff and employees who deal directly with clients, has been falling steadily and is currently at 1.03.
The number of clients increased year-on-year by 4.5 percent to this half-year’s figure of 217,400, virtually a third of Macau’s population. Growth was noted for products per active client (up 6.1 percent to 3.46), turnover (up 16.9 percent to MOP91.155 billion), deposits (up 25.3 percent to MOP51.557 billion) and loans (up 7.5 percent to MOP27.259 billion).
Cardoso also said that in the first half-year non-performing loans represented only 0.17 percent of credit granted, versus 0.50 percent during the same period of 2015,  financial margin was up 13.5 percent to MOP382.3 million and that operating expenses grew by just 2.8 percent to MOP149.9 million. He highlighted that the cost to revenue ratio had fallen to under 30 percent, coming to 29.99 percent at the end of June.
Regarding a future prognosis for activity in Macau until the end of the year, the CEO of BNU said that the economic climate “is challenging” and that BNU Macau should post only single-digit turnover growth.
“We think there will be some beneficial results to reap in 2017 and that they will be much more substantial in 2018, with the opening of the bridge linking Zhuhai to Macau and Hong Kong,” he added.
Cardoso also mentioned about the  planned opening of a branch in the future on Hengqin Island in Zhuhai municipality, thereby closing an existing gap. “We can support hundreds if not thousands of clients who have investments in China and which BNU Macau could never properly support. Now we’ll be able to do so by having an established presence in mainland China.”
Owned by Portugal’s state-held Caixa Geral de Depósitos financial group, BNU Macau currently has a workforce of 480 employees and 19 branches, which should rise to 20 by the end of the year.  MDT/Macauhub