Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The country’s private commercial banks (PCBs) witnessed a mixed trend about their operating profits in the just-concluded calendar year — 2010 — compared to the same of the previous year.

“Such profits of the PCBs were mostly hit by plunging stocks and slashed interest spread in 2011,” a senior private banker told BBN in Dhaka on Sunday while explaining their operating profit positions last year.

Operating profit, however, does not indicate the real financial picture of a bank. Because, the banks have to make room for provisioning against bad debts and taxes that have to be paid to the government from their operating profits.

A number of PCBs has been able to make only modest rate of growth of their operating profits in 2011 over that of the previous calendar year. But the growth rate of operational profits of some other PCBs in 2011 were lower than that of 2010.

Available figures of 22 PCBs out of a total of 30 showed a mixed trend about their operating profits in the year under review.

Among those banks, the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. (IBBL) was the top operating-profit earner – BDT 14.70 billion in 2011 against BDT 11.43 billion earned in the previous year.

The National Bank Ltd. (NBL) was placed at the second position with an estimated earning of BDT 10.42 billion in operating profit, compared to that of BDT 10 billion in 2010.  

The Prime Bank Ltd. secured the third position earning BDT 8.25 billion as operating profit in 2011 against BDT 6.70 billion earned in the previous year.
 
Southeast Bank Ltd., made operating profits worth BDT 6.10 billion in 2011 against BDT 6.80 billion in 2010.

The operating profit of Eastern Bank Ltd. rose to BDT 5.00 billion last year from BDT 4.50 billion in 2010.

National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd (NCCBL) made BDT 4.22 billion operating profit in 2011 compared to BDT 4.10 billion in 2010. The operating profit of Mercantile Bank stood at BDT 3.90 billion in 2011.

The operating profits of EXIM Bank Ltd. came down to BDT 4.05 billion in 2011 from BDT 6.07 billion a year ago.

The operating profit of Pubali Bank Ltd., which has the largest number of branches among the PCBs, rose to BDT 5.97 billion in the just concluded year from BDT 5.90 billion in 2010.

Al-Arafah Islami Bank made operating profit worth BDT 4.50 billion in 2011 against BDT 2.90 billion of the previous year while Social Islami Bank Ltd (SIBL) earned BDT 3.06 billion in 2011 compared to BDT 1.63 billion in 2010.

First Security Bank Ltd. earned operating profit worth BDT 1.63 billion in 2011 compared to BDT 1.20 billion in 2010.

The operating profit of Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd increased to BDT 5.14 billion in 2011 from BDT 4.50 billion in 2010 while Premier Bank earned BDT 2.38 billion in 2011 compared to BDT 2.85 billion in 2010.

The operating profit of Shahjalal Islami Bank Ltd. declined to BDT 3.15 billion in last year from BDT 3.90 billion in 2010 while such profit of the Standard Bank Ltd came down to BDT 3.0 billion in 2011 from BDT 3.11 billion 2010.

The operating profit of Bank Asia Ltd. rose to BDT 4.22 billion in 2010 from BDT 4.15 billion of the previous year while that of the IFIC Bank stood at BDT 3.18 billion in 2011.

The Bangladesh Commerce Bank Ltd. made BDT 490 million as operating profit in 2011 compared to BDT 330 million in 2010 and that of One Bank Ltd. declined to BDT 3.08 billion from BDT 3.60 billion.

The operating profit of Dhaka Bank Ltd. increased to BDT 4.63 billion in 2011 from BDT 4.01 billion a year ago.

Jamuna Bank Ltd. earned operating profit worth BDT 3.11 billion 2011 compared to BDT 2.53 billion in 2010.

BBN/SSR/AD-02Jan12-1:35 am (BST)