BEKB, the cantonal bank of Bern, has had a good 2017 and awarded more mortgages to its clients. The board plans to increase the dividend.
BEKB had net income of 137.4 million Swiss francs in 2017, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement (in German) today.
The board plans to increase the dividend to 6.60 francs per share from 6.20 francs as a consequence of the positive performance.
Boost From Mortgages
The bank at the end of the year had loans outstanding worth 22.4 billion francs, 5.1 percent more than in 2016. Mortgages rose 972 million francs to 20.7 billion. Loans and mortgages are the bank’s core business.
Key Client Pulls Out
Assets under management decreased slightly to 18.5 billion francs, down from 18.7 billion. The market-performance-induced inflow of 1.4 billion francs was more than offset by a net outflow of 1.6 billion francs, which was largely due to one large institutional client pulling out its assets, the bank said.
Interest income rose 5.8 percent to 308.3 million francs. The bank said that the low-rate-policy of the central bank kept weighing on the bank’s interest margin and expects that the monetary policy will remain largely unchanged for the time being. BEKB therefore will keep operating costs tightly controlled. The bank in 2018 expects a full-year result in line with 2017.
