Ping An OneConnect Bank (PAOB), one of Hong Kong’s eight virtual banks, has released its financial statement for the year ended on December 31, 2020.
PAOB’s activities has grown steadily since its official launch in September 2020, with total income grew by 21.3% year-on-year to HK$7.973 million.
Both loans and deposits have grown at a steady pace as customer deposits amounted to HK$482 million while loans and advances to customers were HK$69.7 million respectively as of 31 December 2020.
PAOB registered a loan-to-deposit ratio of 14.5% and the ratio is expected to increase in the future as loan volumes increase over time.
In 2020, gross interest margin and net interest margin for PAOB’s SME loan business were at 9.3% and 8.3% respectively without any overdue loans during the period.
Given that PAOB was officially launched in September last year following the pilot trial in June, its business is still at a nascent stage of development; loss before income tax increased from HK$112 million in 2019 to HK$184 million in 2020 while net interest income was HK$3.1 million, representing a decrease of 52.8% year-on-year from 2019’s HK$6.6 million.
The decrease was resulted from interest expenses payable to depositors, as well as declining market interest rates.
Looking ahead, PAOB said that it anticipates business environment would improve significantly when compared to last year as economic activity recovers.
Ryan Fung, Chief Executive of PAOB said,
“Since we had our official launch on 29 September 2020, our FY2020 financial statement only reflects the operational performance over a 3-month period. During the first half of the year, we committed massive resources to build a strong team as well as the infrastructure for the inaugural launch.
Starting from our business preparation to the official launch, PAOB has firmly adhered to our belief and positioning of alleviating financing needs of SME customers with financial technology and big data, instead of aggressively pursuing the goal of increasing the scale of deposits.”
Featured image credit: Screengrab from PAOBank
