The net income of Bank of Commerce led by bankero Michelangelo Aguilar more than doubled to P360.6 million in the first quarter of the year from P146.3 million in the same quarter last year from the continued strong core business activities despite the continuing local and international market volatilities.
The total revenues of the banking arm of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) grew by 14.5 percent to P1.7 billion as net interest income grew by 6.5 percent to P1.47 billion.
On the other hand, the non-interest income of Bank of Commerce almost doubled to P271.77 million from P140.84 million resulting mainly from the turnaround in foreign exchange gains and growth in service fees business.
The listed bank continues to demonstrate operational efficiency as operating expenses growth was kept in check declining by 2.7 percent to P1.24 billion in the first quarter of the year from P1.28 billion.
Provision for credit and impairment losses plunged by 98.7 percent to P771,500 from P59.86 million.
The total resources of Bank of Commerce inched up by 3.3 percent from end 2021 level to P206.4 billion in end March this year mainly due to the 13.8 percent growth in loans and receivables.
Contributing as well to assets expansion were increases in investment securities.
The bank’s capital base stood strong expanding by 14.2 percent to P26.7 billion in the first quarter from the P23.4 billion in previous quarter, spurred mainly by proceeds from its initial public offering (IPO) last March.
Bank of Commerce has a network of 140 branches and aims to deploy more ATMs in addition to the 253 count at end March.
