Staff Reporter
Karachi
The Board of Directors of Bank Alfalah Limited in its meeting held on the other day, approved the Bank’s unaudited condensed interim financial statements for the half year ended June 30, 2020.
The Bank’s operating profit at Rs. 14.386 billion showed a growth of 16.1% compared to the corresponding period of 2019.In view of economic impact of pandemic, the Bank has adopted more conservative view for provision built up against advances which includes subjective provisioning and general provision on account of expected credit weakening amid covid pandemic. Further, impairment against equity securities was also booked upfront instead of taking benefit of SBP relaxation. Accordingly, the Bank reported profit after taxation of Rs. 5.584 billion for the half year ended June 30, 2020 as compared to Rs. 6.209 billion for the corresponding period, which translates into earning per share of Rs. 3.14 (Jun 2019: Rs. 3.50).
Net interest income increased by 7.8% which was driven by higher average earning assets along with better balance sheet management seeking to mitigate the impacts of spread compression. Non-markup income stood at Rs. 6.882 billion, higher by 38.2%, with strong contribution from capital gains of Rs. 1.733 billion and FX income of Rs. 2.009 billion due to favourable exchange rate movement. Fee and commission income declined due to lower transactions volume amid the lockdown in the country.
Operating expenses were contained at 11.3% compared to same period last year. This increase was largely driven by staff costs, IT support and maintenance fee, full year impact of new branches opened last year along with overall impact of inflation and rupee devaluation.
