Ali Al-Mousa

KUWAIT: Commercial Bank of Kuwait announced its financial results for the nine months period of 2017. Commenting on the financial results, Ali Al-Mousa the bank's chairman said that the bank's total assets reached KD 4,369.8 million at the end of September 2017 compared with KD 4,047.0 million at the end of September 2016 (an increase of KD 322.8 million a growth of 8 percent), and operating income increased to reach KD 110.9 million from KD 104.5 million for the September 2016 (an increase of KD 6.4 million a growth of 6.1 percent). Net operating income (before provisions) for the nine months period ended 30th September 2017 is KD 75 million and net profit is KD 14.5 million compared with KD 74.5 million and KD 27.5 million respectively for September 2016.

Al-Mousa explained that the Bank witnessed a growth in the interest income by 9.7 percent and fee income by 7.2 percent for the period ending September 2017.

Al-Mousa attributed the decline in net profits to the continuation of the bank's conservative policy of using the bulk of the operating profit to enhance its precautionary provision base. At the end of September 2017, these provisions amounted to KD 136.3 million coverage of 1,117 percent against non-performing loans (NPL).

In addition to continuing the Bank's policy to write off non-performing loans, without waiving any of the Bank's legal rights, in order to clean up the loan portfolio and reduce the ratio of non-performing loans; as the Bank continues to maintain a lower NPL ratio which reached 0.52 percent as at the end of September 2017.

Al-Mousa referred to the other strong financial indicators at the end of September 2017 where capital adequacy ratio stood at 18.71 percent, the leverage ratio stood at 11.2 percent, liquidity coverage ratio stood at 224 percent and Net Stable Funding Ratio stood at 113.9 percent, these ratios comfortably exceeding the minimum requirement set by the Central Bank of Kuwait. The bank continued to control its operational costs. The cost to income ratio was 32.4 percent as at 30 September 2017.