SC Bank Korea's 2021 net dips 50 pct on one-off costs

SEOUL, March 18 (Yonhap) -- Standard Chartered Bank Korea said Friday its net profit tumbled more than 50 percent in 2021 from a year earlier on large one-off costs.

Combined net income stood at 127.9 billion won (US$106 million) last year, down 50.3 percent from a year earlier, said the local unit of British banking giant Standard Chartered Bank.

The lender said the bottom-line plunge is blamed on one-off costs worth 252.7 billion won resulting from a special early retirement program in the fourth quarter of last year.

Its operating profit also sank 59.4 percent on-year to 145.9 billion won in 2021, but the amount rose 10.9 percent on-year, excluding the one-off expense.

Standard Chartered Bank Korea said its interest income expanded 5.7 percent on-year to 1.01 trillion won last year, despite a fall in its net interest margin, a key barometer of profitability.

The lender's ratio of nonperforming loans had reached 0.19 percent as of the end of December, down 0.12 point from a year earlier, with its loan delinquency rate dropping by 0.04 percentage point to 0.10 percent.

As of end-December, the bank had 86.7 trillion won in assets, up 4.2 percent from the previous year.

Standard Chartered Bank Korea said its capital adequacy ratio, a key barometer of financial health, had stood at a "good level" of 15.20 percent as of end-December.

The ratio measures the share of a bank's total capital to its risk-weighted assets. The Bank for International Settlements, an international organization of central banks based in Basel, Switzerland, advises lenders to maintain a ratio of 8 percent or higher.

Last month, global ratings agency S&P Global raised the lender's credit outlook to "positive" from "stable."

In 2005, the British financial group took over the financially troubled First Bank of Korea.

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