Jan.29 (NBD) -- As of January 26, 13 A-share listed banks have disclosed their 2017 preliminary reports, and most of them delivered better-than-2016 results. Non-performing loans (NPL) ratio of the 13 banks except SPF Bank went down in 2017.

The 13 banks are China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, SPD Bank, Bank of Shanghai, Bank of Jiangsu, Bank of Nanjing, Bank of Hangzhou, Changshu Rural Commercial Bank, Wuxi Rural Commercial Bank, Jiangyin Rural Commercial Bank, Rural Commercial Bank of Zhang Jiagang, Wujiang Rural Commercial Bank, and Bank of Guiyang.

Both assets and net profits rise year on year

Statistics show that as of January 26, net profit attributable to shareholders of the 13 banks totaled 232.29 billion yuan (36.7 billion U.S. dollars). It means the banks altogether reaped 636 million yuan (100.53 million U.S. dollars) in net profit every day in 2017, which surpassed the respective net profit of over 80 percent A-share companies in 2016.

Total revenue of the 13 banks stood at 663.5 billion yuan (104.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017, 9 of which saw a positive growth. With regard to net profit, all 13 banks have witnessed a positive growth, 9 of which seen a double digit growth, led by Changshu Rural Commercial Bank (21.71 percent) and Bank of Guiyang (23.97 percent).

Asset size of the 13 banks also posted a stable growth in 2017. In addition, total assets and net assets also experienced a year-over-year increase. As of the end of 2017, total assets of the 13 banks stood at 25.45 trillion yuan (4.0 trillion U.S. dollars).

NPL ratio dropped

As of the end of 2017, NPL ratio of the 13 banks ranged from 0.86 percent to 2.39 percent with an average of 1.54 percent.

Among the 13 banks, 12 have seen its NPL ratio decreased compared with the number at the beginning of 2017, with SPD Bank being an exception.

Jian Lichun, research director of Northeast Securities said there's a time laspe before the detailed amount of bad loans are reported. The reported bad loans are actually accumulated two or three years ago.

Return on Equity (ROE) decreased

Weighted average ROE of the 13 banks all exceed 9 percent, but only 3 achieved year-over-year growth. The remaining 10 have seen ROE decreasing in varying degrees, ranging from 0.2 percent and 1.9 percent.

Fu Lichun told NBD that it means profit-making capabilities of banks haven't increased yet. The decreasing ROE might be a result of significant increase in assets, but disproportionately small growth in net profit.

Dong Dengxin, director of the Institute of Financial Securities of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, said attentions should be paid to joint-equity banks, and small and medium-sized banks, for they had carried out a lot off-balance sheet activities (OBS) in 2017. The declining ROE could also be a result of unbalanced development of businesses activities. However, it's still early to determine the reason behind. 

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn