May 20 (SeeNews) - North Macedonian lender Stopanska Banka Skopje [MSE:STB] said that its non-consolidated net profit halved to 539.5 million denars ($9.8 million/8.8 million euro) in the first quarter of 2019 from 1.05 billion denars in the same period of last year.
Stopanska Banka Skopje's profit fell year-on-year mostly due to the one-off effect of its deal in March 2018 to sell the 921.8 million denars debt owed to the lender by ferronickel producer Feni Industries, the bank said in an interim financial statement last week.
The lender's net interest income fell to 903.1 million denars in the first three months of 2019 from 960.1 million denars in the comparable period of 2018, while net fee and commission income grew to 262.6 million denars from 245.3 million denars a year earlier.
Net foreign exchange gains declined to 22.6 million denars in the review period from 39.4 million denars the year before, while other operating income increased to 94.4 million denars from 88.9 million denars in the year-ago period.
Personnel expenses edged down to 207.7 million denars in the January-March period from 208.9 million denars a year earlier. Other operating expenses rose to 257 million denars from 231 million denars the year before.
The bank's assets increased to 92.4 billion denars at the end of March from 90.5 billion denars a year earlier.
Loans and advances to customers other than banks rose to 64.3 billion denars at the end of the first quarter from 63.7 billion denars the year before, while deposits by customers other than banks edged up to 76.9 billion denars from 76.0 billion denars at the end of March 2018.
Stopanska Banka Skopje is part of the National Bank of Greece group.
(1 euro = 61.49 denars)
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