KB Financial Group Inc (KB) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending September 30, 2022

October 25, 2022 3:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Peter Kweon

Greetings. I am Peter Kwon, the Head of IR at KB Financial Group. We will now begin our 2022 Q3 Earnings Release. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of you for participating. We have here with us today at our business results presentation, Scott YH Seo, Senior Managing Director and CFO of the Group as well as other group executives. CFO, Scott YH Seo will first present the 2022 Q3 major business highlights, and then we will have a Q&A session.

We will invite our CFO to walk us through the 2020 Q3 earnings results.

Scott YH Seo

Good afternoon. I'm Scott YH Seo, CFO of KB Financial Group. Thank you for joining the company's Q3 2022 earnings presentation. Before going into earnings results, I will briefly run through key business highlights of the group.

First, KBFG's Q3 cumulative net profit was KRW4,27.9 billion, up 6.8% year-over-year. Despite greater financial market volatility and difficult operational backdrop, we once again displayed the group's robust fundamentals and earnings capacity.

Also, cumulative ROE reported 12.11% and annualized EPS, earnings per share, was KRW13,530. EPS was up 5.9% year-over-year, sustaining an uptrend. Q3 net profit was KRW1,271.3 billion seeming to have dipped marginally versus Q2, but excluding one-off gain from sale of real estate from KB Insurance last quarter, KBFG headline profit was up 7.7% Q-on-Q.

Next Q3 cumulative credit cost for the group against total loan was 24 basis points. Despite slower global demand, trade deficit, and heightened uncertainties in the real as well as deep rate hikes leading to higher credit risk, we have been keeping credit costs at a steady level at around 20 basis points, which KBFG has maintained since 2016.

While group's NPL coverage ratio as of end of September was around 220%, which is the highest level of loss absorption capacity in the industry. Lastly, KBFG's BOD today has decided on KRW500 quarterly dividend paid per share.

Let me now walk through the details of the business performance. Q3 2022 cumulative net interest income for the group was approximately KRW8,339 billion and net interest income for Q3 reported KRW1.897 billion, driven by solid loan asset growth and higher NIM on a rate hike cycle, it was up 19% year-over-year and 3.7% Q-on-Q.

Group's Q3 cumulative net fee commission income reported around KRW2,600 billion on the back of stock market slump driving a significant fall in trading volume, brokerage fee income from the securities entity was down by around 42% year-over-year, and we also saw sluggish sales of trust and funds for the bank.