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Thursday 1 August 2013

OCBC Q2 profit falls 8%, hit by poor result of insurance unit

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC), Singapore's second-biggest bank, posted an 8 per cent drop in quarterly profit, a below-forecast result after it was hit by lower contributions from its insurance unit.
OCBC earned S$597 million in the three months ending in June, compared with S$648 million a year earlier. The profit was below the S$643 million average forecast of six analysts polled by Reuters.
The poll was taken before OCBC's insurance unit Great Eastern Holdings posted a 77 per cent drop in quarterly profit after it was hit by the second-quarter market volatility that drove its non-operating business to a loss of S$155.6 million.
OCBC underperformed its domestic rivals DBS Group Holdings and United Overseas Bank, which both beat market expectations by posting net profit growth of 10 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively.
"Despite the partial erosion to our earnings in the second quarter from the unrealised mark-to-market losses at our subsidiary Great Eastern, the momentum in our customer flow business remains strong," chief executive Samuel Tsien said in a statement. - Reuters