KakaoBank said on the 5th that its net profit for the first half of this year was 328.0 billion won, up 24.4% from 263.7 billion won in the first half of last year, marking a record high on a half-year basis.
KakaoBank's operating revenue for the first half was 1.6483 trillion won, up 5.5% from 1.5626 trillion won in the first half of last year. The company said interest revenue based on loan growth and expanded funds management gains, as well as non-interest revenue such as fees and platform revenue, grew evenly.
Revenue from loans (loan interest revenue) was 1.0588 trillion won, up 5.9% from 999.9 billion won in the first half of last year. Non-interest revenue was 589.5 billion won, up 4.8% from 562.7 billion won a year earlier.
First-half fee and platform revenue came to 169.6 billion won, up 10.5% from the same period last year. The net interest margin (NIM) in the second quarter was 2.13%, up 0.21 percentage point (p) from 1.92% in the second quarter of last year. The outstanding loan balance at the end of the second quarter was 48.217 trillion won, up 518.0 billion won from 47.699 trillion won in the first quarter.
KakaoBank extended 520.0 billion won in new mid- to low-credit loans in the second quarter, supplying about 1.0 trillion won on a cumulative basis in the first half. It also continued efforts to support finance for self-employed people and small business owners. The outstanding loan balance for individual business owners at the end of the second quarter was 3.687 trillion won, up 284.0 billion won from the first quarter.
KakaoBank plans to maintain stable loan growth in the second half as well, focusing on loans to individual business owners and on policy finance products and inclusive finance products for end users. The deposit balance at KakaoBank at the end of the second quarter was tallied at 67.110 trillion won.
Although it fell by 2.246 trillion won from 69.356 trillion won in the first quarter due to a stock market rally, more than 1.0 trillion won flowed in during July in the second half, turning the deposit balance to a net increase. Group accounts also continued to grow. At the end of the second quarter, the group account balance was 11.7 trillion won, up about 100.0 billion won from the first quarter.
The delinquency rate and the ratio of substandard-and-below loans in the second quarter were 0.51% and 0.54%, respectively, maintaining a similar level to the first quarter. The number of customers at the end of the second quarter was 27.63 million, with about 1 million new customers joining in the first half of this year. Monthly active users (MAU) were tallied at 20.32 million.