Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior, S. A. (NYSE:BLX) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call October 20, 2023 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Jorge Salas - Chief Executive Officer
Ana Graciela Varela de Mendez - Chief Financial Offficer
Conference Call Participants
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. [Operator Instructions] Please note, today's conference call is being recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode.
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, CEO. Sir, please go ahead.
Jorge Salas
Thank you, operator. Good morning to everyone joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. Q3 was a record-breaking quarter. As you will see in today's presentation, we continue to make progress on our 2026 strategic plan aimed at attaining sustainable mid-teen returns.
Today, I will start with a high-level summary of the results, highlighting our key achievements. And then Annie, our CFO, will provide a detailed breakdown of the numbers. After that, given the better-than-expected performance so far, I will update our guidance for the remainder of the year, and then I'll open the call for questions.
So let's proceed to the next slide. So here, we have all relevant financial metrics show clearly once again, a very positive growth, this time, with record figures. Clearly, we are being able to capitalize on the bank's structural competitive position in Latin America. We are consistently taking advantage of the different avenues for profitable growth that we identified in our strategic plan.
Starting with the asset side of the balance sheet. The growth on the portfolio was 4% year-on-year. But perhaps more important is the fact that the asset quality has remained very healthy, with NPLs below 0.1%, despite the challenging environment marked by high interest rates, both in dollars and in local currencies in Latin America. Once again, an undisputable testament of the quality of our clients and our underwriting standards.
On the liability side, client deposits, our most cost-efficient funding source, continue to grow steadily, both in nominal terms, as much as 23% year-on-year, and also as a fraction of total funding, now representing 50% of total funding compared to 42% just a year ago.
On the P&L side, we have achieved a new record for net interest income in the quarter, totaling $60.5 million, an 11% increase compared to the previous quarter and an impressive 51% growth compared to the same period of last year. Our net interest margin now stands at 2.48%, reflecting 71 basis point improvement year-on-year.