During the year under review, the Bank's primary strategic priorities were driven towards quality balance sheet growth, risk optimization, expansion in customer base, enrichment of existing and introduction of new products with focus on providing digital services while ensuring operational efficiencies across the Bank.
Expansion in outreach through conventional and alternative delivery channels continued during 2017; with 1,250 branches including 117 Islamic Banking branches. The Bank's strategically located ATM network across the country was further augmented to reach 1,239 ATMs including 249 off-site ATMs. Launch of pilot digital self-service branches in Lahore and Karachi remained the key highlight of the year.
In line with banking industry's expectations, margins during the year remained constrained due to changing earning assets mix, prevailing low interest rate regime, high liquidity levels and intense competition within the sector for securing quality assets.
Under the challenging business environment, the Bank achieved sustainable level of earning net revenue from customers through attaining volumetric growth in average earning assets funded by improved average CASA mix in deposits along with realizing recovery from non-performing obligors. The Bank posted a stable Net markup income after provisions of Rs 33,536 million against Rs 33,508 million in 2016.
Investments in new technology driven products and services remained key feature of the year. Launch of Prepaid Cards, Auto loans, BANCA insurance along with Business Internet Banking and revamping of Allied Direct Internet banking to "MyABL" remained the significant highlights of the year. Accordingly, Fee, commission and brokerage income stood at a healthy level of Rs 3,917 million; with new initiatives expected to further contribute towards the growth in fee based income going forward. Concurrent focus was also made on further enrichment of information security set-up through adoption of biometric verification technology, introduction of chip-based/contactless cards and enhanced security features embedded in internet banking services, to facilitate our valued customers.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange index remained volatile during the year and started to gradually move in the bullish territory post year end 2017; validating Bank's stance of holding its strategic blue-chip equity portfolio; yielding Dividend income of Rs 3,226 million during the year.
Income from dealing in foreign currency depicted a growth of 18% and amounted to Rs 762 million against Rs 645 million in 2016. Robust recoveries against written-off loans contributed significantly in other income's growth to Rs 323 million as against Rs 102 million in 2016.
During the year, Capital Gain of Rs 641 million was realised from fixed income securities as against Rs 2,674 million during 2016. Despite continued investment and improvement in conventional and alternate delivery channels, ongoing investment in technological infrastructure along with training and development of the human resource; growth in Non-markup expenses was curtailed to 3% at Rs 21,530 million.
The Bank achieved Profit After Tax of Rs 12,734 million as against Rs 14,427 million during 2016. Super Tax, which was initially levied vide the Finance Act 2015 continued for the year. Resultantly, effective tax rate stood at 39%. The EPS of The Bank stood at Rs 11.12 per share as compared to Rs 12.60 per share in 2016. During 2017, Return on Assets (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) stood at 1.1% and 17% respectively. The Bank's ROA and ROE remained well-above September 2017 industry's average of 0.9% and 13.2% respectively.
Private sector credit appetite showed signs of recovery as economic activity started to gain pace. The Bank fully capitalized on quality credit growth opportunities and expanded Gross Advances portfolio by 12% to reach Rs 388,752 million as compared to Rs 348,346 million in the previous year. In the wake of possible increase in benchmark rates, the Bank re-profiled investment mix towards mainly shorter tenor market treasury bills; overall investments increased to Rs 698,082 million at end-December 2017.
Accumulation of no/low-cost deposits remained key objective of the bank during the year. The Bank's overall deposits grew to Rs 883,741 million at December 31, 2017 as compared to Rs 805,110 in previous year; posting a double digit growth of 10%. Key achievement during the year remained substantial growth in non-remunerative current deposits which surpassed Rs 300 billion and reached to Rs 316,335 million at December 31, 2017 demonstrating growth of 25%. As a result, CASA as a percentage of total deposits improved to 79% at end-December 2017.
The Bank's Balance Sheet sustainable growth momentum was maintained during the year, with total assets increasing to Rs 1,246 billion or 17% from end-December 2016. Total Equity of the Bank also remained robust and stood at Rs 106,716 million as at December 31, 2017; an increase of 6% over 2016.
The Bank's robust technology driven Risk Management Framework continues to yield results; with reduction of NPLs by Rs 2,379 million during 2017 to close at Rs 18,052 million. No FSV benefit was taken into account while determining the provision against NPLs. Coverage Ratio of the Bank increased to 92.6% as at December 31, 2017 against 91.9% at December 31, 2016. Infection ratio was reduced to 4.6% as at December 2017 as compared to 6.4% at December 2016. Both infection and coverage ratio of the Bank remains well above the September 2017 industry average of 9.2% and 85.3% respectively.
The Bank's Capital Adequacy ratio (CAR) also stood at a healthy level of 22.39%; adequately meeting the requirement of the SBP. The standalone and consolidated CAR under Basel III stood at 22.39% and 22.38% respectively. Common Equity Tier ratio (CET) and Tier 1 ratio (CET1) posted at 16.91% against the requirement of 6.0% and 7.5% respectively; depicting a well-capitalized position of the bank.-PR