Egypt's leading private bank, Commercial International Bank (CIB), has reported a 31 percent rise in net profits in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period a year earlier.
CIB's bottom line for the period January to June reached LE1.74 billion ($243 million) compared to LE1.33 billion ($185 million) in the same six months of last year.
Consolidated revenues for the first half of 2014 amounted to LE3.79 billion, a 17 percent rise from LE3.24 billion in the same period in 2013.
Standalone net interest income reached LE2.8 billion, 17 percent higher than a year ago.
Second quarter revenues reached LE2.04 billion while net profits reached LE932 million.
Hisham Ezz El-Arab, chairman and managing director of CIB, attributed the quarterly rise in revenues to "Egyptian corporates starting to show signs of a turnaround and consumer banking continuing its strong performance in both asset and liability products."
“Corporate lending picked up towards the end of the quarter, with LE2.1 billion in new corporate loans issued across a variety of sectors. Consumer lending also hit record levels of LE8.9 billion, 24 percent over year-end 2013," added Ezz El-Arab.
In April, CIB held the highest market share for private-sector banks at 8.26 percent.
In the first half of 2014, customer deposits increased 15 percent from the end of 2013 to register LE110.9 billion. A third of the new deposits came in foreign currency.
Ahram Online
31 July
