EastWest Bank profit jumps on interest income, fees

EastWest Bank said its net profit during the first quarter grew four-fold mainly because of interest income and other fee-based transactions.

In a statement, the Gotianun-led lender said its net income went up 355.1 percent to P475 million in the first three months from P104 million in the same period last year.

“With the way the first quarter went and given the momentum of the business, there is a good chance we will exceed our initial P1-billion income target for 2010. We hope to end the year with return on common stockholders of around 20 percent,” Antonio Moncupa, EastWest president and chief executive, said.

Revenue for the period was up 92.9 percent to P1.627 billion from P843 million in 2009 as both net interest income and non-interest revenues nearly doubled, the bank said.

Net interest income increased by 90.6 percent to P1 billion from P475 million last year because of the growth in consumer and corporate loans, improvements in deposit cost structures, among others.

Total expenses rose by 54.8 percent to P939 million, the bank said.

“We are starting to see better costs efficiencies as a result of the significant growth in our asset portfolios. We hope to sustain these gains as we position the bank to take advantage of the positive sentiment in the macroeconomic environment,” Moncupa said.

The bank has 90 branches and expects to end the year with around 115 branches as part of its expansion program.

It will also issue an additional P1.5 billion in Tier 2 sub-debt in the next few weeks as part of the expansion efforts, the bank said.-Lailany P. Gomez