Saudi banks’ net income to grow 12.9% in 2012

Saudi banks have maintained relatively high profitability for 2012 despite high provisioning, NCB Capital says in its latest report. “We revise our profit CAGR for 2011-16 down from 14.5 percent to 12.1 percent due to our expectations of tighter margins, lower fee income and increased provisions,” said Mahmood Akbar, equity research analyst at NCB Capital. Overall, for the 10 banks under the report’s coverage, NCB Capital expects net income to grow 12.9 percent YoY and 1.5 percent QoQ in Q4, 2012. The 1.5 percent growth in Q4, 2012 net income is expected to be mostly driven by lower provisioning. From: Arab News