(LEAD) KB Financial Q3 net falls 69.4 pct

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead to highlight annual comparison; ADDS more details from
para 2)
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea's top financial
services company, said Thursday its third-quarter earnings declined 69.4 percent
from a year earlier on squeezed profit margins.

Net income came to 173.7 billion won (US$144.9 million) in the July-September
period, compared with 568 billion won the previous year, the group said in a
regulatory filing. But the figure jumped 58 percent from three months earlier.
Revenue fell 43.2 percent on-year to 6.68 trillion won and operating profit
tumbled 75.6 percent to 145 billion won, it added.
Shares of KB Financial Group closed down 2.61 percent to 59,700 won on the main
bourse.
Kookmin Bank, the flagship unit of the group, posted a net profit of 231.1
billion won, down 58.2 percent from the previous year.
The lender's net interest margin (NIM), a key barometer of profitability, reached
2.2 percent in the third quarter, up from 2.16 percent the previous quarter. But
it was sharply lower than the 2.89 percent registered the previous year, it
added.
Korean banks' NIMs have been under pressure as record-low benchmark interest
rates narrowed their loan-deposit spread. But signs of an economic recovery and
expectations for a rate hike by the central bank have begun to boost market rates
like returns on certificates of deposit, helping their margins improve.
Kookmin Bank's loan delinquency rate came in at 0.8 percent as of the end of
September, down 0.04 percentage point from three months earlier. Its
non-performing loan ratio stood at 1.41 percent as of end-September, up 0.07
percentage point a quarter ago.
KB Financial Group's total assets reached 331 trillion won as of the end of
September, up 3.4 percent from the end of last year, it added.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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