EDMONTON — Alberta’s Crown-owned leading agency, ATB Financial, has cited higher expenses for an 8.4 per cent decrease in fiscal second-quarter profits.
ATB said Wednesday that its net income in the three months ended Sept. 30 was $51.2 million, down from $55.9 million in the same period a year ago.
The decrease was “due largely to an increase in operating expenses required to make the transition to a new state-of-the-art banking system,” it said in a release.
Non-interest expenses increased to $204.1 million compared with $170.1 million in the year-earlier period.
Operating revenue in the three months was $276.7 million, an increase of $27.7 million over the year-earlier period.
Loans grew to $26.2 billion at the end of September, a five per cent increase over last year while the company’s loan loss provision expense decreased.
“It was another solid quarter for ATB and the credit goes to our associates and our customers whose perseverance and patience helped us through the launch of our new banking system and allowed ATB to continue to grow our business,” said president and CEO Dave Mowat.
“Looking ahead, we anticipate higher-than-normal expenses as we continue to stabilize our new banking system and serve our customers through the transition. We’re also expecting continued volatility in financial markets and low interest rates.”
ATB Financial is the largest Alberta-based financial institution, with assets of over $30 billion providing retail, agriculture and business financial services as well as investor services to some 680,000 Albertans.