KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea's No. 2 banking group by assets, saw its 2014 net profit rise 10.2 percent on a drop in bad loan reserves, the company said Thursday.
  

Net income totaled 1.4 trillion won ($1.29 billion) last year, compared with 1.1 trillion won the previous year, the group said in a regulatory filing.
  

For the fourth quarter alone, the group's net income tallied 203 billion won, down 21 percent from 258.4 billion a year earlier.
  

KB Financial said the on-year strong bottom line came as it set aside 215.5 billion won, or 14.9 percent, less in loan loss reserves last year.
  

The group said that its net interest income fell 1.6 percent on-year to 6.42 trillion won last year as its net interest margin, a key barometer of profitability, has been on the decline.
  

Its NIM stood at 2.46 percent at the end of the fourth quarter, down 0.06 percentage point from three months earlier.
  

The group's total assets stood at 405.4 trillion won as of end-December, up from 25.3 trillion won a year earlier.
  

Kookmin Bank, the flagship unit of the group, posted a net income of 1.29 trillion won last year, up 23.9 percent from the previous year.
  

Shares of KB Financial closed at 36,350 won on the Seoul bourse, down 4.59 percent from the previous session, with the benchmark KOSPI retreating 0.51 percent. The earnings results were released after the market closed. (Yonhap)