Wrong bank figures
I refer to Anthony Curmi’s article APS And Foreign-Owned Banks’ Statistics At A Glance (July 19). While the article gave an interesting overview over foreign-owned banks operating in Malta, we noticed that most of the figures published for Volksbank...
I refer to Anthony Curmi’s article APS And Foreign-Owned Banks’ Statistics At A Glance (July 19).
While the article gave an interesting overview over foreign-owned banks operating in Malta, we noticed that most of the figures published for Volksbank are wrong:
As one can see by comparing the table (below) with the information in his letter, there are several incorrect figures in the report.
| Volksbank Malta Limited | ||
| 1. Customer account | € millions | 16 |
| 2. Deposits by banks | € millions | 442 |
| 3. Total assets | € millions | 644 |
| 4. Loan to banks/financial institutions | € millions | 126 |
| 5. Pre-tax profits | € millions | 4.51 |
| 6. and to total assets | % | 0.70% |
| 7. Profit before tax on equity | % | 2.60% |
| 8. Operating income to total assets | % | 1.33 |
| 9. Operating expenses to total assets | % | 0.68% |
| 10. Cost to income ratio | % | 32.95% |
| 11. Total equity | € millions | 173.258 |
| 12. and as % of customers a/cs | % | 1062% |
| 13. and as % of total deposits | % | 38% |
The remark about Volksbank’s very small profit is completely unfounded: Instead of €120,000, as erroneously reported, the correct figure is €4.51 million.
The article also reports that VBM is “highly dependent on the volatile source of interbank funding”. If Mr Curmi had taken the time to read our annual report, he should have noticed that note 27 shows that 88 per cent of the €442 million owed to banks is due to related companies.
All in all, the article gives a completely wrong impression of Volksbank Malta.