OREANDA-NEWS. Aozora Bank, Ltd., a leading Japanese commercial bank, announced its financial results for the first nine months of FY2013.

Net income was 34.1 billion yen, an increase of 3.5 billion yen, or 11.4%, year on year, reflecting continued growth in earnings primarily from the sale of financial products to our mass affluent retail customers, the sale of derivative-related products to our corporate and financial institution customers, as well as favorable gains from investments in limited partnerships.

This result represented progress of 83.3% towards the full-year forecast of 41.0 billion yen. Loans were 2,777.9 billion yen, an increase of 58.2 billion yen, or 2.1% from March 31, 2013. Loans increased for the second consecutive quarter, increasing 202.1 billion yen over the six month period to December 31, 2013.

The percentage of retail funding to total core funding was stable at 62.5%. The Bank maintained sufficient liquidity reserves of approximately 520 billion yen as of December 31, 2013.

Non-performing claims as defined by the Financial Reconstruction Law (FRL) were 89.5 billion yen, a decrease of 16.8 billion yen, or 15.8%, from March 31, 2013. The FRL ratio improved by 0.67 points to 3.16%. In addition, the percentage of FRL claims covered by reserves, collateral and guarantees remained high at 90.9% as of December 31, 2013.

The ratio of loan loss reserves to total loans on a consolidated basis remained high at 2.42%.

The Bank's capital adequacy and Tier 1 ratios as of December 31, 2013 will be announced at a later date, and the Bank expects to maintain a high level of capital. As of September 30, 2013, the capital adequacy and Tier 1 ratios were 16.09% and 16.62%, respectively.