Kookmin Bank Celebration of 10th Anniversary

President Min promises to lead KB to last for a century as top bank in Korea

President Min Byong-deok of Kookmin Bank said he will try to lead the bank to be one that will last for over a century at a ceremony marking the bank's 10th founding anniversary on Nov. 1 at the bank's Yeouido head office in Seoul.
The CEO said the next 10 years for KB will be a hopeful period, as they strive to find new growth engines and boost productivity and effectiveness in their work so that the bank will be reborn as a century-old enterprise.
"All of us at KB should think about justice when we look back on our past decade of operation, which is the attitude that all financial men should have in their minds," Min said.
The CEO said he will see that KB will exempt dislocated people from various fees and provide them a special interest rate to help their lives and the bank will devise means to support the economy of the general public by reinvigorating the traditional markets around the country.
The KB Financial Group posted 1.575 trillion won in net profit in the first half of this year with 817.4 billion won in the second quarter, and Kookmin Bank, a major affiliate of the group, recording 1.60 trillion won in net profit in H1, the group said recently.
A substantial rise in net profit has been owed to an improvement in net interest margin (NIM) throughout the period and also the soundness of assets, boosting interest earnings as the result of the reductions in loss provisions, the group said.
Interest earning in the period amounted to 3.416 trillion won, owing to increases in NIM, up 12.9 percent YoY. Fee earnings came to 997.3 billion won in H1, up 15.2 percent YoY. The loss provision fell 55.5 percent YoY at 718.1 billion won due to the soundness of assets.
Overhead expenses also rose a little thanks to efforts to reduce expenses, rising only 3.3 percent YoY at 1.803 trillion won, the group said.
To review the H1 results by major affiliates, Kookmin Bank posted net profit of 1.600 trillion won thanks to increases in NIM and reduced loss provisions with the net profit in the second quarter coming to 8.599 billion won. NIM, except for Kookmin Card, averaged 2.4 percent in Q2, up 0.02 percent from Q1, while combined NIM for both the bank and credit card amounted to 3.07 percent in Q2, up 0.01 percent from Q1.
Kookmin Bank's BIS came to 13.33 percent in H1 while core tier 1 ratio came to 10.2 percent, tops in the banking industry at home.
The ratio of non-performing assets came to 1.1 percent in Q1, up 0.02 percent from the preceding quarter and up 0.10 percent from yearend 2010, the group said. nw

A Scene from Kookmin Bank's 10th anniversary ceremony held on Nov. l, 2011.
Photos on courtesy of Kookmin Bank

President Min Byung-deok delivers a congratulatory speech at a ceremony to celebrate Kookmin Bank's 10th anniversary on Nov. 1.