ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) on Sunday posted a 16.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit, and marginally increased its dividend for 2015.
The earnings were part of mixed fourth-quarter results for United Arab Emirates banks, with Emirates NBD and Dubai Islamic Bank posting bumper profit growth while National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Mashreq and Union National Bank saw profits fall.
ADIB, Abu Dhabi's largest sharia-compliant bank, made a net profit of 477.4 million dirhams ($130 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, compared to 409.6 million dirhams in the same period a year ago, it said in a bourse statement.
Beltone Financial had forecast the bank would make a profit attributable to shareholders of 399 million dirhams in the quarter.
For 2015, the bank said its net profit was 1.93 billion dirhams, up 10.5 percent from 2014.
Customer financing for loans totalled 78.4 billion dirhams at the end of last year, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier, while customer deposits grew to 94.9 billion dirhams, up 12 percent.
However, the bank remains cautious about growth in 2016 because of competitive pressures on credit spreads. "We continue to forecast modest new customer financing growth..." Tirad al- Mahmoud, chief executive of ADIB, said in the statement.
The bank booked loan impairments of 249.3 million dirhams in the fourth quarter, up 39.5 percent over the same quarter in the previous year.
ADIB's board has proposed paying a cash dividend of 24.27 percent for 2015, the statement added, equivalent to 0.2427 dirham per share. The bank paid a dividend of 0.2334 dirham per share for 2014.
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