Chairman Cho Yong-byeong of Shihan Financial Group. (Photo: SFG)

Shinhan Financial Group Co., a major South Korean banking group, said Oct. 25 its net profit rose 15.8 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, boosted by rising income from non-banking businesses.

Third-quarter net profit stood at 981.6 billion won ($836 million), compared with a profit of 847 billion won a year earlier, Shinhan Financial said in a regulatory filing.

In the first nine months of this year, Shinhan Financial's net profit grew 9.6 percent on-year to a record 2.8 trillion won, Shinhan Financial said, raising the possibility that its annual net profit this year will be more than 3 trillion won for second year in a row.

The group beat KB Financial Group’s 940.3 billion won in the 3rd quarter net profit and Hana Financial Group’s 836 billion won.

The credit for the group’s outstanding results went to Chairman Cho Yong-byeong’s far-sighted move to boost the group’s overseas operations. The group’s overseas outlets total 159 in 20 countries around the world with the outlets in Japan and Vietnam doing well in particular.

Chairman Cho set up the Global Operational Headquarters to run the overseas operations of the group’s affiliates including banks, credit cards, financial investment (securities), life insurance overseas operations, in a move to boost synergy among those affiliates in operations.

In Vietnam, the group pushed for localization of its operation, in particular, personnel assets and clients by hiring more local personnel for its outlets, and securing local clients and managing their assets.

The group’s results in the first three quarters of 2017 came to 204.9 billion won and jumped to 292.1 billion won this year.

The share of the group’s profits from overseas rose from 7 percent in 2017 to 10.1 percent this year. Chairman Cho would like to push it above 20 percent in the near future.

Flagship Shinhan Bank saw its net profit gain 7.7 percent on-year to 618.1 billion won for the third quarter.

Shinhan Bank's interest income rose 6.6 percent on-year to 694 billion won for the third quarter, with its net interest margin falling 0.05 basis point to 1.53 percent.

Shinhan Financial Group Co. saw its second-quarter net profit gain 8.5 percent from the previous quarter on the back of high interest and non-interest income, retaining its position as the country’s best-performing financial firm.

Shinhan Financial Group said in a regulatory filing on July 24 that it raised 996.1 billion won in net profit in the April-June period, up 8.46 percent from the previous three-month period and 6.19 percent from the same period a year ago.

Shinhan Financial Group managed to remain as top financial group as its bottom line was higher than that of KB Financial Group for both the second quarter and January-June period.

In the first six months of this year, Shinhan Financial Group raised 1.9 trillion won in net profit, up 6.6 percent from the same period last year, higher than KB Financial Group’s 1.84 trillion won. KB Financial Group’s net profit in the April-June period reached 991.1 billion won.

Shinhan Financial Group’s solid earnings came on both high interest and non-interest income. Shinhan Financial Group’s net profit from its global business also jumped 8.7 percent year over year to 178.3 billion won in the first half of the year, accounting for 9.6 percent of total income, up 0.5 percentage points from last year.