The quarterly results from OCBC, also Southeast Asia's second largest lender by assets, rounded up a strong earnings season by Singapore banks as DBS Group (DBSM.SI) and United Overseas Bank (UOBH.SI) also delivered double-digit profit growth.
Besides higher interest rates, Singapore lenders have also benefited from strong inflows from wealthy customers amid global uncertainty, including U.S.-China geopolitical tensions, because of the city-state's status as a financial safe-haven.
The figure compared with a mean estimate of a S$1.76 billion profit from four analysts polled by Refinitiv.
The bank projected its full-year net interest margin, a key profitability gauge, to be above 2.2%, return on equity in the range of 14% and low-to-mid single-digit loan growth.
($1 = 1.3410 Singapore dollars)Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Tom Hogue, Shri Navaratnam and Jamie FreedOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Persons:
ROE, Helen Wong, Thilan Wickramasinghe, OCBC, Wong, Yantoultra Ngui, Tom Hogue, Shri Navaratnam, Jamie Freed
Organizations:
Chinese Banking Corp, DBS, United Overseas Bank, Maybank Securities, Refinitiv, Thomson
Locations:
Singapore, SINGAPORE, Asia's, U.S, China, Malaysia