Asia United Bank reported a 38 percent drop in consolidated net income to P736 million in the first three months of 2021 from the P1.2 billion earned a year ago primarily due to higher provisions.
“While COVID-19-related lockdown persists and the economy continues to reel from the impact of the global pandemic, AUB has set aside an additional P638 million in loan loss provisions in the first quarter of 2021,” the bank said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
This brings its loan loss coverage to 3.4 percent of its total loan portfolio. The additional loan buffer represents a six-fold increase from the P93 million in the same period last year.
Amid the lockdowns that discouraged clients from visiting bank branches, AUB managed to generate total deposits of P261 billion, a 20 percent increase from the previous year, with low-cost CASA deposits significantly driving the growth.
The share of CASA deposits to AUB’s total deposit base rose to 73 percent from 65 percent, previously.
“This is solid proof that our steady investment in our digital channels has been paying off,” AUB President Manuel Gomez said.
Before the pandemic led to wider acceptance of digital platforms, AUB has already been enhancing its AUB Mobile App to enable fund transfers and the adoption of the national QR code for convenient fund transfers and payments via QR across banks.
The growing reliance on digitalization also helps AUB keep its costs down.In the first quarter, operating expenses were down by 4 percentas the bank continues to demonstrate operational efficiency witha cost-to-income ratio of 47.2 percent.