KB Financial Group, the country’s third-largest banking group by assets, announced Friday that its earnings last year fell 25.9 percent on-year due partly to a low interest rate and increasing bad debt allowances.

Net income in 2013 totaled 1.28 trillion won ($1.19 billion), compared with 1.73 trillion won in 2012, the group said in a regulatory filing.

It also said that its net interest income fell by 7.3 percent to 6.52 trillion won last year, compared with 7 trillion won the previous year, as its net interest margin, a key barometer of profitability, has been on the fall. The group’s total assets amounted to 380 trillion won as of December 2013, up 17 trillion won from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Industrial Bank of Korea said its earnings for 2013 tumbled 26.8 percent on-year amid a long-sustained interest margin squeeze.

The net income of the state-run bank, including the earnings of its subsidiaries, IBK Capital and IBK Investment and Securities, amounted to 854 billion won in 2013, compared with 1.16 trillion won in 2012.

IBK’s net interest margin also fell last year from 2.14 percent to 1.93 percent, the bank said. But its NIM in the final quarter of 2013 advanced by 3 basis points to 1.93 percent from the previous quarter, the first rebound since the end of 2010, the bank said.

(596story@heraldcorp.com)