KUALA LUMPUR: S&P Global Market Intelligence is projecting the aggregate dividend payout of the Asia-Pacific banking sector to grow at a slower pace of seven per cent year-on-year for the fiscal year (FY) of 2022 to US$209 billion (RM921.7 billion).
The lower growth forecast, compared to the 14.7 per cent growth in FY2021, was in view of the economic challenges worldwide, such as high inflation and slowing economic growth, it said in a note today.
The research firm also said economic policies in Asia-Pacific are divergent, with mainland China and Japan continuing to keep their policies loose whereas rest of markets have largely tightened their monetary policies.
This has different implications for their outlook of the respective banking sector, it said.
"Growth rate of dividends from banks in mainland China, the biggest contributor of aggregate payouts in Asia-Pacific, is expected to slow down in FY2022, as the banks are experiencing tapered loan demand as well as pressure on bottom lines from the zero-COVID policy.
"The average dividend growth for the big four banks, which include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China and China Construction Bank, is expected to be 6.4 per cent in FY2022, as compared with 11.5 per cent in FY2021," it noted.
Meanwhile, the research firm said banks in Malaysia, Australia, South Korea, and India are experiencing heathy growth in corporate loans, owing to the improvement in business conditions.
It said the positive impacts are expected to be compounded by the widening interest rate margin from interest rate hikes.
"Although the banks are set to benefit from the tailwind from higher interest rate, we see dissimilar growth path for banks even in the same market owing to different competitiveness in the loan market, cost control capability and asset mix.
"For example, the dividend payout growth in top three banks in Singapore is expected to range from nine per cent to 20 per cent year-on-year," it added. - Bernama
