South Korea’s No. 3 banking group Hana Financial Group Inc. said Thursday its earnings for 2013 fell 37.1 percent from the previous year on a squeezed interest margin.

Net income amounted to 1.02 trillion won ($1.1 billion) last year, compared with 1.62 trillion won the previous year, the group said in a regulatory filing.

Its fourth-quarter earnings totaled 143.3 billion won, a turnaround from a net loss of 114.7 billion won from the previous year.

The group said that the weaker earnings for last year came due to a high comparison base in 2012 when the group booked gains worth 1.07 trillion won from buying Korea Exchange Bank at the price that is less than the fair value of its net tangible assets.

The group’s net interest margin (NIM), a gauge of profitability, reached 1.94 percent at the end of last year, down 0.19 percentage point from a year earlier.

The group’s total assets amounted to 368 trillion won as of the end of last year, up 18 trillion won from the previous year.

Hana Bank, the flagship unit of the group, posted a net profit of 177.6 billion won in the fourth quarter, compared with a net loss of 56.5 billion won a year ago. Last year, the bank’s net income reached 785 billion won, up 19.6 percent from a year ago.

The bank‘s NIM came in at 1.52 percent at the end of December, down 0.18 percentage point from the previous year. (Yonhap)