KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd said it will manage its liquidity or funding cost and enhance its profitability as its primary focus for 2023.
"In addition to ongoing efforts to increase CASA (current accounts and savings accounts) and operational accounts, other initiatives are also being looked upon to preserve its net income margin," it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.
Accordingly, the bank said it is continuing to invest in digitalisation, enhancing its mobile banking services and building strategic partnerships.
In the first quarter of 2023, Bank Islam posted a net profit of RM118.09mil, up from RM105.92mil in the year-ago quarter.
The bank's earnings per share rose to 5.33 sen from 4.95 sen in the comparative quarter.
Revenue meanwhile grew to RM1.1bil from RM773.97mil.
According to the bank, net income improved due to a 132.4% or RM60mil surge in non-fund-based income on the back of higher investment income and net gain from foreign exchange transactions.
Gross financing grew 10.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM66.2bil, while customer deposits and investment accounts stood at RM77.8bil, with a y-o-y increase of RM9.7bil or 14.3%.
It said this was mainly attributable to the healthy y-o-y growth of 25.9% or RM6.8bil in total current and saving accounts and transactional investment accounts (Casatia), to stand at RM33bil.
Bank Islam said this represented a healthy level of 42.5% of total customer deposits and investment accounts.
The group’s Total Capital Ratio remained strong at 21.2%.
“As at the end of March 2023, Bank Islam’s total assets stood at RM92.1bil, with a year-on-year growth of 14.4%, driven by y-o-y growth in both financing and investment securities.
“Our healthy capital and liquidity position reflects that our growth momentum and fundamentals remain strong,” said group CEO Mohd Muazzam Mohamed in a statement.
As at March 31 2023, the group's gross impaired financing ratio was 1.37% which was better than the industry average of 1.75%.
