SIB posts Dh143m profit as assets rise

Bank’s deposits up 14.1% and customer financing surges 1.1%

Sharjah Islamic Bank (SIB) yesterday reported a net profit of Dh143.1 million for the first quarter 2018, up 3 per cent over Dh139.1 million in the same period last year.

Total assets reached Dh42.4 billion at the end of the first quarter 2018, up 11 per cent compared to Dh38.3 billion at the year-end 2017.

On the asset side of the balance sheet, customer financing reached Dh22 billion at the end of the first quarter 2018 compared to Dh21.7 billion at the end of 2017, marking an increase of 1.1 per cent.

Also investment in securities, which mainly represent investment in sovereign and investment grade rated tradable sukuk, increased significantly by 19 per cent to reach Dh6 billion compared to Dh5 billion at the end of 2017.

SIB continues its strategy to maintain liquid assets ratio above 22 per cent of total assets and has reached Dh10 billion or 23.6 per cent at the end 2016.

On the liability side, despite the tight liquidity during the year, SIB successfully attracted more customer deposits during the year to reach Dh25.5 billion, up growing by Dh3.2 billion or 14.1 per cent compared to Dh22.3 billion at the end of 2017.

Funding sources

As part of the SIB’s ongoing strategy to continue to diversify the funding sources, the bank has successfully issued a new five years sukuk of $500 million (Dh1.8 billion) during April 2018, as part of $3 billion medium terms sukuk approved programme. SIB currently has three outstanding sukuk totalling $1.5 billion.

Non-performing receivables/NPL’s coverage ratio has improved to reach 121.7 per cent of the NPL’s in 2018 as compared to 99.8 per cent in 2017.

Return on average shareholders’ equity reached 10.77 per cent by the end of the first quarter 2018 compared to 9.21 per cent in 2017, while return on average assets stood at 1.42 per cent by the end of first quarter 2018 compared to 1.33 per cent in 2017.

11%

rise in SIB’s total assets from yearend 2017