Komerční banka's net profit in billions of crowns for the period 2008 – 2022.
Prague – Komerční banka's net profit increased by 37.9 percent year-on-year to 17.6 billion crowns in 2022. The bank's revenues rose by 23.2 percent to CZK 38.6 billion. This follows from the data published by the bank today. She also announced that the board of directors of Komerční banka proposes to pay a dividend of 60.42 crowns per share, i.e. a total of 11.5 billion crowns. The general meeting will decide on the payment on April 20.
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“The dynamic recovery of consumer and business activity after two years of pandemic restrictions contributed to the strong business and financial results,” said Jan Juchelka, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Komerční banka. “The environment in which we do business will also bring a number of challenges this year. Inflation, rising deposit costs and the consequences of the economic slowdown will undoubtedly affect this year's results,” he added.
This year, Komerční banka expects to increase its market share in loans and regain the market share of deposits, which it lost last year. “As far as financial performance is concerned, we expect total revenues to be at a comparable level as in 2022. Net interest revenues will decrease slightly, especially with higher deposit costs,” Executive Director for Strategy and Finance Jiří Šperl said at the press conference.
According to Juchelka, it is now difficult to estimate the impact of the tax on extraordinary profits on the bank's finances this year, but according to him, it will be relatively limited. Higher deposit costs and increasing risk costs will play against the bank's overall profitability.
According to the bank, the level of last year's revenue growth was influenced by the low base of 2021, which was affected by pandemic restrictions and exceptionally low interest rates. Revenue growth was mainly driven by net interest income, which benefited, for example, from the growing volume of loans. The total volume of loans provided by the Komerční banka Group rose by 6.2 percent year-on-year to 784.9 billion crowns. In addition to the bank itself, the group includes, for example, Modrá pyramida stavební spořitelna or consumer credit provider Essox, as well as KB penzijní společnost or Komerční pojišťovna.
The growth of the group's total loan portfolio was mainly driven by loans for businesses, the volume of which rose by eight percent to CZK 396.1 billion. The volumes of financing of working capital and investment loans increased, and loans in euros contributed more to the growth than in crowns. It slowed the growth of housing loans. The volume of newly granted housing loans fell by 64.6 percent year-on-year to CZK 38.5 billion. The total volume of Komerční banka's mortgages for citizens last year increased by 2.3 percent to CZK 268.7 billion, and the Blue Pyramid's portfolio increased by 12.1 percent to CZK 85.3 billion. The growth of consumer loans was also milder last year due to the decline in consumer confidence. The volume of consumer loans rose by 4.6 percent to CZK 34.8 billion.
Deposits of the group's clients decreased year-on-year by 3.4 percent to CZK 916.8 billion. However, the volume of client assets in mutual funds, pension savings and life insurance grew by 6.4 percent to 216.6 billion. According to Komerční banka, clients were looking for higher value for their money in savings and term accounts and in mutual funds.
According to XTB analyst Tomáš Cverna, Komerční banka's results are mixed. “Full-year sales of 38.6 billion crowns fell short of expectations of 38.747 billion crowns, while net profit for the full fiscal year 2022 at the level of 17.6 billion already exceeded estimates,” he said.
From last year's net profit, the bank's management proposes to pay out 65 percent as a dividend to shareholders. This would amount to over 60 crowns per share, which is more than the previous dividends approved recently. However, the situation in previous years was affected by the limitation of dividend payments due to the covid-19 pandemic.
At the end of 2021, the general meeting of Komerční banka decided to pay a dividend of 23.86 crowns per share from retained earnings for the years 2019 and 2020. Last April, the shareholders approved a dividend of 43.80 crowns per share from the profit for 2021, and in November a dividend of 55.50 crowns per share from retained earnings. Komerční banka has over 69,000 shareholders, most of whom are natural persons from the Czech Republic. The majority shareholder is the French bank Société Générale with a share of 60.4 percent.
The entire Komerční banka Group had 2.24 million clients at the end of last year, which was 11,000 less than the previous year. However, Komerční banka itself has increased its clients by 27,000 compared to 2021 to approximately 1.65 million. The group's operating costs rose by 6.1 percent last year to around CZK 16 billion. The fastest growing cost component was contributions to regulatory funds, which rose by 24.1 percent year-on-year to CZK 1.3 billion. Personnel costs increased by 2.6 percent to CZK 7.7 billion. According to the bank, salaries increased, but at the same time the number of employees decreased by 2.4 percent year-on-year to 7,503. The number of Komerční banka branches also decreased by 24 to 218.
In the fourth quarter of last year alone, Komerční banka's revenues increased by 10.4 percent to 9.6 billion crowns. Net profit increased by 11 percent to CZK 4.6 billion.
Komerční banka is the parent company of the KB Group and part of the international Société Générale group. It is among the leading banking institutions in the Czech Republic and in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.
