OCBC Group 2014 net profit increases 39 pct

The net profit after tax of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (OCBC Back) has increased by 39 percent, reaching SGD3.84 billion for the end of the financial year on December 31, 2014. The group made the OCBC Wing Hang Bank (formerly Wing Hang Bank) its wholly owned subsidiary of the group in October 2014.
According to a statement released by the group this week, after consolidating OCBC Wing Hang, profit before tax contribution to the group from the Greater China region increased to 12 percent, up from 6 percent in 2013. Greater China customer loans more than doubled to SGD56 billion from SGD27 billion one year ago.
The group’s asset quality remained strong. Non-performing assets were valued at SGD1.28 billion as of December 31, 2014, up 3 percent when compared with SGD1.24 billion a year ago, but 4 percent lower than the figure of SGD1.34 billion recorded in the previous quarter. Excluding the consolidation of OCBC Wing Hang, the group’s non-performing loans fell 4 percent year-on-year. Geographically speaking, the increase was largely from Greater China (primarily from the consolidation of OCBC Wing Hang) and Singapore, which was partly offset by the declines in other Asia Pacific nations and rest of the world.
Moreover, OCBC’s private banking business continued to grow, with assets under management rising 11 percent to a value of USD51 billion (SGD67 billion) as of 31 December 2014, up from USD46 billion (SGD58 billion) a year ago.
OCBC Bank’s private banking services are provided by the subsidiary Bank of Singapore, which has received increasing industry recognition as Asia’s Global Private Bank, and was voted Outstanding Private Bank in Southeast Asia in 2014 by Private Banker International.
“We are very pleased with our full-
year performance,” said the group’s CEO Samuel Tsien. “Our results demonstrated the diversity and resilience of our core businesses in commercial banking, wealth management and insurance, which lifted earnings to a new high. We will continue with our strategy of prudent growth, focusing on our key markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China.”