KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd saw a year-on-year (y-o-y) rise in its net profit for the second quarter ended June 30, following a recovery from the modification loss that was booked in the previous year’s corresponding quarter.

       The bank’s second-quarter net profit rose y-o-y to RM701.3mil from RM400.8mil on the back of quarterly revenue that fell y-o-y to RM2.93bil from RM3.26bil.

       “Performance is largely due to the (one-off) modification loss in last year’s second quarter. This was the impact from the first moratorium which was announced at the end of March last year, so we had to book this modification loss then.

       “We do not see any modification loss this year. This is the main reason why the second-quarter profit this year was higher than last year,” said group managing director Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli at a briefing yesterday.

       Khairussaleh said the bank had declared an interim dividend of 15 sen per share with an effective 45.1% payout ratio. “This is basically our highest ever interim dividend so far,” he said.

       The dividend will be a 5 sen cash and 10 sen from a planned dividend reinvestment plan by the bank, RHB said in a statement.

       Basic earnings per share for the quarter rose y-o-y to 17.49 sen from 9.99 sen while net asset per share is at RM6.8629.

       Moving forward, RHB said it expects the financial year 2021 (FY21) to record a better performance than last year.

       “We have shown resilience in our first-half performance despite a challenging business environment. We expect this year to be better than last year and we remain vigilant for the rest of the year as we are still not out of the woods yet.

       “Our focus is to ensure business continuity – to implement our initiatives, drive the sustainability agenda and ensuring the health and safety of our employees,” he said.

       Khairussaleh said the impact from the lockdowns that were recently implemented would likely be seen in its third quarter performance.

       “For example, the land office was not able to open while car showrooms had to be shut down. This will certainly affect the growth in mortgage and auto financing in the third quarter.

       “In the second quarter, we have been able to hold our performance steady but we do see this challenge in the third quarter on the latest lockdown on certain economic activities, businesses and offices,” he said.

       RHB said its second-quarter loan growth expanded by 1.5% while costs had declined by 2.3% from the previous consecutive quarter.

       Khairussaleh said RHB aimed to grow its loan books by 4% for the entire FY21 and this would be driven by the various business segments.

       “The engine of growth is the usual – mortgages, small and medium enterprises, and hopefully auto financing would pick up now that showrooms are reopening. We are also confident that Singapore would continue to support this growth,” he said.

       On its rationale to partner with Boost Holdings Sdn Bhd to jointly bid for a digital banking licence, Khairussaleh said: “Why would we, as a bank, apply for a digital bank when our licence now already enables us to do digital banking business? On this matter – yes we can do it on our own but there are a few differences here.

       “Under the digital banking licence, there would be a new segment that we are not normally in. For Boost, they have been doing this business and it is not new to them. They also have the customer base from Celcom subscribers and micro borrowers. We don’t have much of this segment.”