To The Moon

The earnings season is officially over.

Some of the best results this season were delivered by the trio of local banks as they saw their top and bottom lines surge in tandem with rising global interest rates.

Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Group (SGX: D05), pulled off an impressive performance with its 2023 net profit passing the S$10 billion mark for the first time.

The other two blue-chip banks also fared well.

United Overseas Bank Ltd (SGX: U11), or UOB, reported a record high net profit while OCBC Ltd (SGX: O39) saw its net profit hit S$7 billion for the first time.

With all three banks reporting record results, which should you pick for your portfolio?

Financial performance

First, we look at each bank’s financial performance.

DBS Group takes the cake with a 22.3% year-on-year jump in total income, the highest among the three banks.

However, when it comes to net profit, OCBC recorded the highest year-on-year jump at 27.1%.

OCBC also registered a 28.5% year-on-year growth in operating profit before allowances.

Winner: OCBC

NIMs and loan growth

Moving on to each bank’s loan book and net interest margin (NIM), we find that loan growth remains tepid for all three banks.

DBS and OCBC both registered just a small 0.4% year on year increase in loans while UOB did slightly better at 0.5% year on year.

Surging interest rates helped to boost all the banks’ NIMs for 2023, with DBS seeing the sharpest rise of 0.4 percentage points from 1.75% in 2022 to 2.15% in 2023.

However, DBS’s NIM for the fourth quarter of 2023 (4Q 2023) was a tad lower than the 3Q 2023’s 2.19%.

UOB’s NIM was also slightly lower quarter-on-quarter at 2.02% for 4Q 2023.

Only OCBC managed to register a quarter-on-quarter NIM increase, ending at 2.29% for 4Q 2023 and 2.28% for the year.

OCBC’s 2023 NIM was also the highest among the three banks.

Winner: OCBC

Cost-to-income ratio

Next, we look at each bank’s cost-to-income ratio (CIR).

CIR is calculated as the expenses of the bank divided by its total income, so a lower CIR indicates that a bank’s operations are more efficient.

All three banks saw their CIR decline year on year as total income rose faster than expenses.

However, the final quarter of the year will typically see higher CIR as the bank makes provision for bonuses for their staff.

OCBC has the lowest CIR among the three banks for both 4Q 2023 and the full year, making it the clear winner here.

Winner: OCBC 

Return on equity (ROE)

Next, we look at the all-important return on equity (ROE) metric.

Return on equity measures the net profit generated per dollar of equity of the company and is a measure of profitability per dollar of capital.

DBS not only had the highest ROE among the trio of banks at 18% but also saw the largest year-on-year increase at three percentage points.

Winner: DBS Group

Non-performing loans (NPL) ratio

The non-performing loans ratio (NPL ratio) looks at the proportion of loans within a bank’s loan book that are non-performing (i.e. cannot be serviced by borrowers).

Once again, OCBC holds the crown for having the lowest NPL ratio.

It also enjoyed the biggest improvement in its NPL ratio over the year with a 0.2 percentage point reduction.

Winner: OCBC

Dividend yield

Income investors will love this next characteristic – the dividend yield for each bank.

The good news is that all three banks raised their year-on-year dividends in tandem with their robust financial results.

Of the three, OCBC has the highest trailing 12-month dividend yield of 6.3%.

However, investors should note that DBS raised its quarterly dividend to S$0.54 from 4Q 2023 onwards.

On a projected 2024 dividend of S$2.16, DBS provides a forward dividend yield of 6.4%.

In addition, DBS also declared a 1-for-10 bonus issue of shares with the new shares being entitled to the increased dividend.

When adjusted for this bonus issue, DBS’s dividend yield rises to 7.1%

Winner: DBS Group

Valuation

Finally, we look at each bank’s valuation to determine if their shares are cheap, or expensive.

Of the three, UOB has the lowest price-to-book ratio at 1.08 times, which was a tad lower than 1.1 times back in November 2023.

OCBC’s valuation has also come down slightly from 1.14 times price-to-book to just 1.1 times.

Only DBS sports the same valuation as it did back in November at 1.45 times price-to-book.

Winner: UOB

Get Smart: OCBC is the winner

Tallying up all the attributes makes OCBC the clear winner.

However, income investors may wish to own DBS which sports the highest dividend yield.

You also need to look at each bank’s plans and prospects to decide which bank fits best in your investment portfolio.