Shinhan Financial's Q4 net up 42.2%

Shinhan Financial Group's net income stood at US$329.9 million for the October-December period. Compared with  with the US$232 million for the same period in 2009, this is a 42.2 per cent increase.

The group ascribes it to rebounding interest income and decreased costs for loan losses.

For all of 2010, the group's earnings shot up 82.6 percent on-year to US$2.156 billion.

The annual earnings are nearly on a par with its record high of US$2.165 billion posted in 2007, the group said.

As of the end of 2010, Shinhan Financial's total assets reached US$279 billion, up 1.6 percent from a year earlier, the group said.

The group said its capital adequacy ratio, a key measure of financial health, inched up to 12.8 percent as of end-2010 from 12.6 percent a year earlier.

Non-performing loans, or lending overdue three months or longer, reached 1.43 percent of its total lending at the end of last year, worsening from 1.3 percent posted as of end-2009, it noted.