KARACHI (Web Desk/ Agencies) – Allied Bank Limited (ABL) has profitability has witnessed growth even after sell off of government shares to private sectors as it grew by Rs 4.2 billion in the first quarter of 2015 which is an increase of 30 percent year-on-year compared with Rs 3.2 billion recorded in the same period of last year.
The bank leap its profitability by almost Rs 1 billion whereas its revenue earning recorded grew to Rs 10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2015 which is Rs 2.2 billion or 25 percent higher than last year’s corresponding year.
The prime reason for growth in profitability is the surge in bank’s core income by 46 percent to Rs8.4 billion despite drastic reduced of discount rates. The bank earned Rs 3 billion from various sources of other income to book a comprehensive result.
The bank’s earning per share increased to Rs 3.68 from Rs 2.83.
The bank invested heavily in PIBs which resulted its secure earning from the investments in government papers.
The bank pro-actively managed the earning assets mix by concentrating the volumetric growth in higher yielding assets particularly in the investment portfolio in line with industry trend whereby significant deployment of surplus funds were diverted in Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIB) portfolio of the bank which increased by Rs.235.194 billion, duly facilitated by the maturity re-profiling of local currency debt undertaken by the Federal Government.
Despite intense competition within the banking industry, ABL managed to expand its deposits base. The strategic focus remained on improving the low cost (CASA) deposits mix to absorb the full year impact of regulatory changes in PLS deposits rate calculation.
The network franchise of the bank witnessed another milestone with the opening of 1,000th branch. In conjunction with expansion in conventional banking channels, 96 new ATMs were added to the existing network to increase the number of ATMs to 890.
Earlier in 2014, the number of registered customers for SMS and Internet Banking also grew at a rapid pace. It is important to mention here that due to effective automated monitoring; the Bank maintained one of the highest ATM up time in the industry which remained over 97% and dispensed over 240 Billion rupees in 2014.
Last year, the Government of Pakistan divested 11.5% shares in Allied Bank resulting in over subscription of divested shares by 1.4 times at Rs 110 per share and generation of US$ 32.4 million demand from foreign investors and over US$ 140 million from local investors.
