KARACHI: Faysal Bank Limited (FBL) recorded a profit before tax of Rs15 billion during the nine months ended September 30, up 51 per cent from Rs9.9 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The bank achieved the landmark of Rs1 trillion mark in balance sheet footings on the back of strong deposit mobilisation and borrowings.

The board of directors of FBL announced an interim cash dividend of Rs5.50/ share. This is in addition to the interim cash dividend for the second quarter ended June 30, already paid at Rs0.50/share.

The bank is very close to the completion of the requirements of converting Faysal Bank Limited into a full-fledged Islamic bank. Accordingly, all the non-Shariah compliant retained earnings of the bank are being distributed to the shareholders as cash dividend.

However, the increase in profit after tax is restricted to 26 per cent to Rs7.7 billion during the period under review, compared with Rs6.1 billion in the corresponding period of last year, on the back of extremely high and retrospective tax measures announced in the federal budget.

The current deposit momentum built over the last several quarters continued and has reached Rs274 billion, up 27 per cent over December 2021. The total deposits increased 13 per cent over December 2021 with CASA mix improving to 80 per cent from 75 per cent at December 2021.

FBL’s net advances increased 18 per cent to Rs468 billion, with the growth across all lending businesses and improvement in Advance-to-Deposit ratio (ADR) to 65 per cent as at September 2022.

Despite the prevailing uncertainty, FBL is committed to its strategy for conversion into Islamic bank and has applied to the State Bank of Pakistan for issuance of Islamic banking licence.

The bank continued to deliver on growth objectives and increased the total revenue by 33 per cent to Rs33.6 billion during the first nine months of 2022, compared with the corresponding period of last year.

The non-markup expenses of the bank have increased 27 per cent over the corresponding period, while the cost-to-income ratio has improved to 57 per cent during the period under review, from 60 per cent in the same period of last year.

The net provision for the period reflected reversals of Rs0.7 billion while infection ratio continued to reduce and is at 4.6 per cent with total coverage at 89.5 per cent.

FBL will continue to invest in expanding the footprints by network expansion and is planning to open another more than 50 branches in the fourth quarter of 2022 with an objective to reach the branch network to more than 700 by the end of this year.

FBL was incorporated in Pakistan on October 3, 1994 as a public limited company and its shares are listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange.

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