SG Morning Highlights: OCBC Q3 profit rises 31% to S$1.6b

Advancers / Decliners is 55 to 55, with 49.81 million securities worth S$63.69 million changing hands.

Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo) is consulting the market on proposed changes to the Central Depository's (CDP) margining framework and the CDP clearing fund.

CDP provides clearing services – assuming the role of seller to buyers, and buyer to sellers.

When a clearing member defaults on its obligations to CDP, any loss incurred by CDP as a result will first be met with margins collected from the defaulter. If the loss exceeds the defaulter's margins, the clearing fund will be used to mutualise the residual loss. These measures help to mitigate the impact that a default could have on the rest of the financial system.

Singapore wants to be a crypto assets hub, but not one that centres on the trading and speculating of cryptocurrencies, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said on Thursday (Nov 3).

There is much more to the digital asset ecosystem than cryptocurrencies, said Menon, who was delivering a keynote speech on the second day of the Singapore Fintech Festival.

The real value in the crypto industry comes not from speculating in cryptocurrencies, he stressed, but from tokenising assets and placing them on a distributed ledger for use cases that increase economic efficiency or enhance social inclusion.

Malaysia's central bank raised its overnight policy rate (OPR) by 25 basis points to 2.75 per cent on Thursday (Nov 3) in its fourth hike this year – a move that was expected by economists – to "pre-emptively manage the risk of excessive demand on price pressures", said Bank Negara.

The decision was made against "the backdrop of continued positive growth prospects for the Malaysian economy", said the central bank. It added that the monetary policy committee is "not on any pre-set course, which means that monetary policy decisions will continue to depend on evolving conditions and their implications on the overall outlook to domestic inflation and growth".

The decision came a day after the US Federal Reserve increased its key interest rate by 75 basis points to 4 per cent, and hinted at further rate cuts until inflation is tamed.

This beat the S$1.44 billion consensus forecast in a Bloomberg survey of five analysts.

This was due to growth in average net asset balance and net interest margin expansion, which contributed to a quarterly net interest income gain of 44 per cent to S$2.1 billion, crossing the S$2 billion mark for the first time, said OCBC in its earnings announcement on Friday (Nov 4).

Net underwriting profit, however, increased by 1.6 per cent to S$12.4 million, as management expenses lowered by 0.6 per cent to S$11 million.

This was due to savings from office leases at Springleaf Tower after UOI moved to its new headquarters at Robinson Road in Q4 2021, the group noted in a bourse filing on Thursday (Nov 3).

Net property income in Q3 rose to S$48.3 million, due mainly to lower property expenses, the manager said in an exchange filing.

The Reit's revenue increased 1.7 per cent to S$59.5 million in the quarter, compared with the same period last year.

Earnings per share (EPS) for the January to September 2022 period stood at S$0.0825, up from S$0.0646 previously.

Revenue grew 55.4 per cent to S$607 million, up from S$390.7 million previously. Revenue growth from IoT devices and data communication products were aided by the efficient coordination of components availability, execution and delivery of customer orders at the group's manufacturing facilities in Dongguan and Johor, the tech products manufacturer noted in a bourse filing on Thursday (Nov 3).

Yun Shui Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yunnan Water (Hong Kong), was listed for bidding with a price of 296.2 million yuan, according to the applicable laws in the People's Republic of China.

Together with the listing price, the bidding price was also determined with reference to the enterprise value of 297.9 million yuan as at Dec 31, 2021 – the entire value of the shareholders' equity in the company – the group noted in a bourse filing the same day.

Gross revenue, meanwhile, stood at US$48.7 million, up from the US$41.1 million posted in the year before. This comes as the stapled group sees "strong recovery momentum" in its second and third quarters of 2022, the managers said.

Portfolio occupancy was 71 per cent for the quarter and the trust recorded a revenue per available room (RevPAR) of US$97.