Citibank Korea`s Q3 net dips 20.3 pct

SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Yonhap) -- Citibank Korea Inc., the South Korean unit of the U.S.-based Citigroup, said Friday its third-quarter earnings declined 20.3 percent from a year earlier due to higher loan loss reserves.

Net income amounted to 94 billion won (US$67.3 million) in the July-September
period, compared with 118 billion won the previous year, the lender said in a
statement.
The lender said total revenue advanced 14.2 percent year-on-year to 453.5 billion
won, but it did not provide operating profit figures.
"The bank's weaker bottom line came as it put aside 77 billion won in the third
quarter to cover possible loan losses amid a global credit crunch," a bank
official said.
Citibank assumed some losses after Taesan LCD Co., a local maker of parts for
computer screens, collapsed due to losses from currency options contracts.
The outcome came as South Korean lenders, which are suffering from a dollar
shortage, have been increasingly reluctant to extend loans particularly to
smaller firms amid the slowing economy and a credit crunch.
The bank's total assets amounted to 61.3 trillion won as of the end of September,
up 30.6 percent from the end of last year. The lender's net interest margin
(NIM), a key barometer of profitability, reached 3.33 percent as of
end-September, up from 3.05 percent three months earlier, it added.
The lender said its ratio of loans classified substandard and below stood at 0.83
percent in the third quarter, up 0.09 percentage point from the preceding
quarter.
Citibank Korea was launched in November 2004 after a merger between the group's
local unit Citibank Seoul and KorAm Bank, then the country's seventh-largest
lender.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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