Hana Financial third-quarter revenue doubles on fee income growth

Hana Financial Group said Friday its third-quarter revenue more than doubled from a year earlier to 13.7 trillion won ($10.3 billion), helped by higher fee income from asset management and investment banking. Operating profit rose 13.6 percent to 1.54 trillion won ($1.16 billion), it said in a regulatory filing.

Core income, which combines interest income and fees, reached 9.63 trillion won ($7.27 billion) in the first nine months of the year, up 14.2 percent from the same period a year earlier. Fee income alone rose 29.8 percent to 2.14 trillion won ($1.62 billion) and accounted for 22.3 percent of core income, up from 19.6 percent a year earlier. Interest income came to 7.48 trillion won ($5.65 billion).

Net income for the January-September period totaled 3.62 trillion won ($2.74 billion), up 5.6 percent from a year earlier, of which 1.22 trillion won ($922 million) was earned in the third quarter alone.

Hana Bank, the group's flagship lender, posted cumulative net income of 3.32 trillion won ($2.5 billion), up 5.8 percent from a year earlier, with 1.19 trillion won ($902 million) of that coming in the third quarter. Among the non-bank subsidiaries, Hana Securities earned 283 billion won ($214 million) over the nine months, Hana Card 175 billion won ($132 million) and Hana Capital 144 billion won ($109 million).

Hana's common equity tier 1 ratio stood at an estimated 13.45 percent at the end of September, up 0.18 percentage points from the previous quarter, while its BIS capital ratio was estimated at 15.45 percent. Return on equity was 10.62 percent and return on assets 0.71 percent. Credit costs for the nine months came to 0.30 percent, and the group's cost-to-income ratio improved 0.38 percentage points from a year earlier to 38.38 percent.

Hana also said it would buy back and cancel 250 billion won ($189 million) of its own shares and pay a quarterly cash dividend of 1,165 won per share, up 26.6 percent from a year earlier. Share buybacks and cancellations for the full year have reached a record 949 billion won ($716 million), compared with 754 billion won ($569 million) last year.