Lower loan and earnings growth as banks navigate 2020; dividends to be maintained

SINGAPORE (Jan 17): According to analysts polled by Bloomb­erg, DBS Group Holdings is likely to report the highest growth in prof­it after tax (NPAT) for FY2019 end­ed Dec 31, 2019, of 12.3% (see table 1). Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp is likely to report a 6.1% rise in NPAT with United Over­seas Bank’s NPAT growth at 7.6% in FY2019. The local banks will announce their FY2019 re­sults in February, with DBS reporting on Feb 13, and the other two reporting later on Feb 21.

While the banks are set to report earn­ings growth for FY2019, analysts are less op­timistic about FY2020. Based on Bloomberg’s polls, growth is miniscule for the banks this year. Analysts are expecting UOB’s NPAT in FY2020 to drop marginally y-o-y, OCBC’s to grow by less than 1%, and DBS to record just 1% growth.

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