KUALA LUMPUR: BIMB Holdings Bhd’s (BIMB) net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015 increased 9.9% to RM135.69mil, from RM123.45mil a year ago supported by the improved performance from Bank Islam Group and Takaful Malaysia Group.
Meanwhile, its revenue rose 11.3% to RM809.08mil compared to RM726.89mil in the corresponding period a year ago due to the growth in business activities of Bank Islam as well as higher sales from both Family Takaful and General Takaful business and high net investment income.
The group’s earnings per share for the quarter was 8.84sen per share, from 8.27sen per share a year ago.
Correspondingly, Bank Islam’s fund based income and non-fund based income grew by 20.8% or 6.2% respectively.
“Net financing assets grew by RM624.2mil or 8.5% (annualised) to reach RM30.1 billion as at end March 2015 compared with RM29.5bil as at 31 December 2014,” BIMB Holdings said on Tuesday.
On another note, Takaful Malaysia’s improved performance was mainly due to higher wakalah fee income and lower expense reserves.
Moving forward, BIMB expects that Bank Islam would be able to sustain its growth momentum with a cautious stance due to the current economic conditions.
“In a rising interest rate environment, Bank Islam foresees an increase in bilateral financing as a means to raise funds by corporates rather than going out to the capital market.
“Structured financing products for the specific assets, infrastructure projects and project financing for state government related entities continue to be the main focus in driving secured financing for better asset quality,” it said.
Furthermore, it added that Bank Islam key measures would spur low cost funding, continuous product innovation and expand the value chain through cross marketing.
BIMB said that Bank Islam expects to expand its branch network to attain higher deposits and enter into new potential markets.
On the other hand, Takaful Malaysia intends to rewards its customers with 15% cash back.
In the long run, Takaful Malaysia expects to establish a strong foothold in the local insurance and takaful arena as the preferred choice for insurance.
