[Courtesy of Woori Bank]
Woori Bank, South Korea's second-largest lender by assets, said Wednesday its net profit jumped 9.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier on decreased loan-loss provisions.
Net profit for the July-September period climbed to 355.6 billion won (594 million US dollars) from 323.3 billion won a year earlier, the bank said in a regulatory filing.'
In the January-September period, the bank's combined net profit was 1.1 trillion won, slightly up from 1 trillion won in the same period a year earlier, it said.
The bank put aside 670.8 billion won to handle any possible non-performing loans during the first nine months of this year, down 27.5 percent from a year earlier. It gave a major boost to the lender's bottom line.
The bank's net interest margin, a key measure of profitability, stood at 1.41 percent in the third quarter, compared with 1.38 percent a year ago.
The earnings results came amid ongoing efforts by the South Korean government to sell its stake in Woori Bank. The government owns a controlling 51-percent stake in Woori Bank through the state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp., a legacy of the 1998 Asian financial crisis.
(Yonhap)
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