MANILA, Philippines - Core lending and deposit-taking activities, as well as fee-based transactions boosted the profits of Sy-led BDO Unibank Inc. in the first 9 months by 38% to P10.5 billion from P7.6 billion a year ago.

On Monday, November 5, BDO told the exchange that it "capitalized on the favorable conditions in the bond markets to realize robust trading gains from its treasury activities."

Net interest income reached P26.8 billion, while fee-based service income jumped to P10 billion, largely due to robust trading and foreign exchange gains, which skyrocketed by 50% to P7 billion.

As of end-September, its gross customer loans was at P724 billion (up 17%), while total deposits increased to P860 billion.

Following a successful US$1 billion stock rights offer that was concluded in July, the Bank’s capital base expanded to P152 billion, making BDO the largest-capitalized bank in the industry.

Other measures of financial health remained robust:

• Gross non-performing loan (NPL) ratio at 3.1%
• Gross NPL coverage is at 124%
• Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) is at 20.3%, well above the regulatory minimum
• Tier 1 Capital ratio is at 15.2%, also above minimum.

BDO has over 750 operating branches and over 1,800 ATMs nationwide. - Rappler.com