economy and politics

Bank profits fell 32% until April

Banks

The Financial Superintendency said that banks recorded profits of $2.5 trillion at the end of April, a figure that represented a 32% drop compared to that reported at the end of the same month of 2023, when these had been $3.7 trillion.

The total of credit establishments reported profits of $2.5 trillion, an amount 41% lower than that registered in April 2023, a period in which these amounted to $4.3 trillion.

Read: ‘Neither the public nor the private sector should engage in politics with the economy’: María L. Gutiérrez

Disaggregating by type of entity among credit establishments, of which banks are a part, financial corporations earned $173.7 billion, financing companies lost $129.3 billion, and financial cooperatives recorded profits of just $2.9 billion.

At the end of April, the assets of the financial system (own and third parties) reached $2,987 trillion, with a real annual variation of 0.3% and a nominal variation of 7.7%. Of this value, $1,447 billion (48.5% of the total) correspond to the supervised entities’ own resources, while the remainder are third-party resources, including assets in custody. Trust companies are the main asset manager of the financial system with $990 billion, that is, 64.3% of third-party resources and 33.1% of the system’s total assets, of which $295 billion corresponded to the securities custody activity. The ratio of total assets to GDP was 188.3%.

See more: Education and ‘fintech’, the exits to the famous ‘drop by drop’ loans

The gross balance of the credit portfolio amounted to $686.4 billion and the depth indicator stood at 43.3% of GDP. In accordance with the credit cycle, the portfolio completed 13 months with negative real annual variations and registered a 5.6% drop in the gross balance in April, which reflects the negative real annual contribution of the consumer and commercial modalities with negative figures of 10.7% and 5.2% respectively, which could not be neutralized by the positive variation in microcredit and housing; the correction of the inflation effect to the extent that the nominal growth rate (1.2%) is higher than the real variation; and the dynamics of penalties that in April totaled $2 billion, mainly influenced by consumption patterns with a participation of 87.5% and microcredit of 6.4%.

Banks

iStock

The balance reporting arrears of more than 30 days reached $36 billion, which meant a month-on-month increase in the balance of $513,000 million. In particular, compared to April 2023, the balance increased at a real annual rate of 8.6%, driven by the default of the microcredit modalities it registers; 56.7% decreasing compared to the previous month; housing that registers nine months with positive variations up to 21.4% in the month; commercial that decreased compared to the previous month with a record of 8.7% and consumption that grew 2.4% real annually.

Read more: Unexpected swing in banking assets is boosting the bond market

The portfolio quality indicator due to arrears for the total portfolio, calculated as the relationship between the overdue balance (greater than 30 days) and the gross balance, was 5.24%. In April 2023 the indicator had been 4.6%.

Until April there were 11 banking houses with negative net results.

HOLMAN RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍNEZ

Source link