China Construction Bank Corp. reported a 4.7% year-over-year increase in net profit for the year ended Dec. 31, 2019, buoyed by growth in non-interest income.
Net profit attributable to equity shareholders for 2019 rose to 266.73 billion yuan from 254.66 billion yuan in 2018, China's second-largest bank by assets said in a March 29 release.
EPS rose to 1.05 yuan from 1.00 yuan. The S&P Global Market Intelligence consensus estimate for the bank's 2019 normalized and GAAP earnings was 1.06 yuan.
Net interest income grew 5.0% to 510.68 billion yuan from 486.28 billion yuan. Net interest margin for 2019 narrowed to 2.26% from 2.31% in the previous year. The bank's net fee and commission income rose 11.6% to 137.28 billion yuan from 123.04 billion yuan.
Operating income rose 7.0% to 678.00 billion yuan from 633.77 billion yuan. Meanwhile, operating expenses for the year increased 7.7% to 188.13 billion yuan from 174.76 billion yuan. Credit impairment losses swelled to 163.00 billion yuan from 151.11 billion yuan.
As of end-2019, its nonperforming loan ratio improved to 1.42% from 1.46% in the prior-year period.
As of Dec. 31, 2019, the bank's total capital ratio was 17.52%, up from 17.19% a year ago. Common equity Tier 1 and Tier 1 ratios were 13.88% and 14.68%, respectively, compared with 13.83% and 14.42% at the end of 2018.
China Construction Bank said its board proposed a final cash dividend of 32.0 fen for 2019, up from 30.6 fen per share for 2018.
As of March 27, US$1 was equivalent to 7.10 Chinese yuan.