State banking giant, Bank of Ceylon (BOC) with an asset base of over one trillion rupees saw its group net profits in December quarter declining 16 percent to Rs.3.5 billion from the corresponding quarter in 2011, according to the quarterly financial statements released recently.

Despite 4Q profit decline, the banking group however was resilient enough to post a net profit of Rs.14.0 billion in 2012, the highest profit by any bank in the country. This is a growth of 13 percent from the preceding year.

Meanwhile the loans and advances of the bank grew at 27.4 percent, 4.4 percent above the Central Bank imposed credit ceiling of 23 percent (including of funds mobilized overseas) for 2012.

According to the Central Bank road map for 2013, banking sector credit growth stood at 23.3 percent up to November 2012.

The deposit base of BOC, the bank with the largest footprint in terms of branches (324 branches and 218 extension offices) too grew at 16.1 (sector average 18.2 pc to November) to Rs. 692 billion.

The net interest income of the bank, the main source of income from the fund-based operations represents over 70 percent of the total operating income, rose 41.3 percent to Rs.35.4 billion. The bank was also able to improve the net interest margin by 0.54 percent over the previous year to 3.75 percent despite the increase in cost of funds.

Nevertheless the commission and fee-based income dropped by 2.5 percent (Rs.166 million) to Rs.6.43 billion in 2012 over the previous year.

While net trading expenses decreased by 81 percent to Rs. 261.36 million, the other operating income increased by as much as 107.70 percent to Rs. 7.97 billion. The total operating expenses increased by 22.30 percent to Rs.20.81 billion.

Meanwhile both return on assets (before tax) and return on equity (after tax) dropped to 2.10 percent and (from 2.17 percent) and 30.62 percent (33.14 percent) respectively.

While the statutory liquid asset ratio of domestic banking unit dropped to 21.80 (from 23.36 percent), the ratio of off-shore banking unit slightly improved to 24.95 percent (from 24.39 percent).

Though the ratio was maintained at a reasonably high level over the minimum requirement of 20 percent, it remained below the industry average of around 31.20 percent.

The core-capital adequacy ratio (8.63 percent) and the total capital adequacy ratio (11.80 percent) too improved during the year and remained well above the minimum requirement of 5 percent and 10 percent.