Kbank announced on the 15th that it recorded a net profit of 16.1 billion won in the first quarter of this year. This represents a significant decline of 68.2% compared to 50.7 billion won in the first quarter of last year.
A Kbank official noted, "The rise in deposit utilization rates at cryptocurrency exchanges has increased interest costs, and investment in artificial intelligence (AI) has also grown."
Kbank's deposits amounted to 27.8 trillion won, marking a 16% increase compared to the first quarter of last year. The loan balance rose by 15% to 16.9 trillion won. Among this, the amount for housing loans and jeonse loans reached 8.5731 trillion won, growing by 37% over the year.
However, interest income decreased by 20% from the previous year to 108.5 billion won. The implementation of the Cryptocurrency User Protection Act led to an increase in the deposit utilization rates of Upbit from 0.1% per annum in July last year to 2.1%, raising the interest burden on Kbank, which is partnered with a real-name account.
Non-interest revenue recorded 19.7 billion won, increasing by 26% compared to the first quarter of last year. Kbank explained that revenues from money market fund (MMF) management expanded and platform advertising revenue was also ramped up.
The stability indicators improved. As of the end of the first quarter, Kbank's overdue rate was 0.66%, down by 0.29 percentage points from 0.95% in the first quarter of last year. The ratio of non-performing loans also decreased from 0.87% to 0.61% during the same period.
The proportion of Kbank's low and medium credit loans in the first quarter was 35.0%, a slight decrease from 35.3% in the previous quarter but still above the benchmark of 30.0%.