SINGAPORE (Jan 12): Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation could have a rough year ahead of it, and Maybank Kim Eng is maintaining its “sell” rating on the local bank.
Maybank’s analyst Ng Li Hiang noted that credit spreads have not widened and OCBC would be less likely to benefit from the higher risks in the lending environment. By Maybank’s estimates, a 0.2 percentage point increase in credit spreads should be able to raise OCBC’s net interest margins by 0.022%.
As it stands, the banks’ unwillingness to undertake higher risks coupled with weak loan demand has already caused its loan growth to stagnate, after excluding the fluctuations in currency. In contrast, DBS Bank’s loan growth rose 5% and United Overseas Bank’s loan growth rose 7.3% over the same period in constant currency terms.
