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Greetings, everyone. I am Jerry Kang, General Manager and Head of KB Financial Group's IR department.
We will now begin the 2026 Q3 business results presentation. Thank you very much for
participating in today's earnings release.
We have here with us at today's business results
presentation our Group CFO, Sang-Rok Na, as well as executives from our group.
Regarding the
agenda today, we will first have our Group CFO deliver the 2026 Q3 business results and then engage in a
Q&A session.
I will now invite our Group CFO to deliver a presentation on our 2026 Q3
performance.
Greetings, everyone. I am KBFG CFO, Sang Na. Thank you very much for joining our
2026 Q3 business results presentation.
Before proceeding with the business results, I'll
briefly share our cumulative Q3 2026 major performance highlights.
Let's go to page 1. KBFG is
pursuing qualitative improvements in our earnings structure by managing actual returns from a
risk-adjusted perspective that takes into account the credit loss ratio, moving beyond efforts solely
focused on improving the net interest margin. Accordingly, the group's actual interest yield after
accounting for credit risk has remained stable at a level one notch higher than the previous year.
In addition, in our fee income business, we are building a foundation for sustainable growth
in fee income through flexible resource allocation that takes into account changing capital market
conditions and broader market developments, as well as diversification of our revenue sources. In
addition, the group CIR has been maintaining a downward stabilization trend. Along with our scale
expansion, we're improving cost efficiencies and increasing our residual profit after costs.
Overall, we are building a profit structure capable of fully absorbing volatility amidst
extreme changes in the market environment. Please find on the next page that KBFG despite increasing
volatility and an increasingly unpredictable macroeconomic environment has continued to deliver stable
earnings growth supported by complementary earnings generation from our banking and non-banking
businesses.
KB Financial Group plans to continuously expand our group's fundamentals by
diversifying our revenue streams and by reinforcing solid management to secure sustainable future growth
engines. Next, before covering our business performance, I would like to walk you through our Q3 cash
dividends.
Today, our BOD approved a cash dividend of KRW1,167 per share, totaling KRW404.9
billion of cash dividends. Q3 cash dividend per share increased by KRW237 YoY, a 25.5% YoY increase
reflecting a higher total annual dividend amount compared to the previous year and the impact of share
buybacks.
Next, I will cover KB Financial Group's business performance. KB Financial Group's
Q3 net profit posted KRW1,907.5 billion, and on a Q3 cumulative basis, it posted KRW5,792.1 billion, a
13.1% YoY increase. Q3 cumulative group ROE posted 13.89%, marking a significant improvement of 1.1
percentage points YoY.
With factors such as the expansion of the stock market volatilities and
the market rate increase leading to valuation gain volatilities after the first half in Q3, non-interest
income showed a slight weakness, but based on solid loan growth, net interest income increased and rebound
in QoQ and G&A and credit loss reserves are being stably managed and is continuing solid earnings
generation capacities.
From now on, I will go into the details of our business performance in
each category. 2026, Q3 group net interest income posted KRW3.507 billion. And with the increase of
funding costs despite the weak NIM caused by factors including unbalanced funding market challenges,
market supply challenges. It increased by 11.6% QoQ with corporate loan based solid bank loan growth and
the -- as the base effect of interest expenses related to valuation gains on consolidated funds from the
previous quarter dissipated, you can see that there was a result. In addition, on a Q3 cumulative basis,
it grew to 0.9% YoY and posted KRW9,985.3 billion and it's continuing stable growth trend.
Next, I will cover bank loans in won growth. Bank loans in won based on September end 2026
posted KRW391 trillion and grew 3.5% YTD and 1.5% QoQ, respectively. For household loans, stable growth
continued based on real demand and increased 1.5% YTD and 0.9% QoQ, respectively. Corporate loans
centering on large corps and blue-chip SME loans increased 5.5% YTD and 2.0% QoQ, respectively. We plan to
move forward without compromising our financial soundness and profitability taking into consideration the
rebalancing of loan assets in light of overall household debt levels and portfolio transitions through
productive finance.
Moving on to the net interest margin on the bottom right. In Q3, the
group's NIM recorded 1.92% and bank NIM, 1.72%, each contracting by 2 basis points QoQ. Although the
bank's loan asset yield showed some improvement during the quarter. This contraction was due to an
increased cost burden stemming from uneven supply and demand dynamics in the funding market alongside with
irregular fund flows. However, from Q4, the base rate hike from July and August will be gradually
reflected in the repricing of our loan assets. Therefore, we expect the improvement in asset yields to
further expand.
And by leveraging the Group's greatest strength, our superior sales channel
capabilities, we will focus on growing our low-cost deposits and by realigning our asset liability
structure to effectively absorb volatility in the funding market we plan to manage our net interest margin
even more stably.
Next, I will move on to non-interest income. For Q3, the group's cumulative
non-interest income stood at KRW4,758.8 billion, up 27.3% YoY. Of this, the cumulative net fee income
recorded KRW4,087.8 billion, an increase of 38.5% YoY. The group's net fee income has exceeded KRW1
trillion for four consecutive quarters demonstrating a solid fee income base that has leveled up. However,
due to a decrease in stock market trading, volume during Q3, the growth of the capital market-related fee
income showed slowdown, resulting in a 29.7% decrease in net fee income QoQ.
And for the other
operating income in Q3, impacted by rising market interest rates and heightened stock market volatility,
performance was weaker in securities, derivatives, and FX, which resulted in a sizable decline Q-on-Q.
Although the non-interest income leveled up this year, quarterly volatility has expanded.
Currently, we are making efforts to smooth out our earnings through replacement, trading of securities
taking into account interest rate trends. Furthermore, we plan to secure earnings stability by
strengthening our asset management capabilities in the capital markets and expanding the foundation of our
flow business.
Next, I will cover G&A expenses. For Q3, cumulative G&A expenses stood at
KRW5,360.4 billion, up 7.0% YoY. As for the group CIR, driven by continuous cost efficiency effort, it
recorded 36.4%, maintaining a downward stabilization trend within our target range.
Moving
forward, under the principle of selective cost execution, we will continue our efforts to reduce recurring
expenses, and we plan to expand investments in future growth areas, such as AI.
Turning to
page 8, let me discuss the group's provision for credit losses. In Q3, the provision for credit losses was
KRW563.3 billion, up slightly by 8.4% QoQ. This was driven by our conservative provisioning policy taking
into account factors such as the base rate hikes. However, the credit cost for the group for Q3 recorded
43 basis points.
On a cumulative basis has also stood at 40 basis points, indicating that it's
still being managed at a stable level. Considering this trend of improving asset quality, we project the
Group's credit cost for the year to be managed within the mid-40 basis point range.
In light
of the rising interest rate environment, we will strengthen our asset quality monitoring targeting
segments vulnerable to credit risk by maintaining a conservative risk management stance, we plan to
respond closely and proactively.
Next, I will elaborate on the group's capital ratios. Based
on the preliminary figures as of end of September, the Group's BIS ratio recorded 16.02%, and CET1 ratio
recorded 13.80%. The Korean won to US dollar exchange rate fell by approximately KRW181 from the end of
the previous quarter, creating a more favorable environment compared to the first half of this year. But
the upside to the CET1 ratio was somewhat limited, improved by 5 basis points Q-on-Q.
This is
mainly attributable to approximately KRW1.3 trillion in share buybacks and cash dividends, our largest
ever shareholder return and a decrease in FVOCI valuation gains, adding increased downward pressure. As
for the group's first round of shareholder returns of 2027 will be determined based on the year-end CET1
ratio, we plan to minimize earnings volatility and focus on a more sophisticated RWA management to stably
manage the CET1.
As of end of September 2026, the group's RWA recorded KRW368 trillion, up
3.1% YTD, showing our annual RWA growth rate is stably managed within our target range. The following
pages contain details on the earnings that we have covered so far, so please refer to them.
This concludes the presentation on KB Financial Group's business results for Q3 2026. Thank
you very much for your attention.