The earnings of Colombian financial sectorwhich includes banks and other credit institutions, insurers, trust companies, stock brokers and special official entities, among others, totaled more than 24.9 trillion pesos, 6.2 percent more than the 2021 record, according to what announced the Financial Superintendence.
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Of that amount the earnings attributable only to banks that operate in the country totaled 14.2 trillion pesos, which indicates that it is 57 percent of the total amount of profits of the financial system last year. Banks only earned 2.14 more in 2022 than in the immediately previous year, according to the balance reported by the market authority.
The second largest profits in the sector were paid by the special official institutions (IOE), among which are Findeter, Bancóldex, Finagro and Fogafin, which together reported a benefit of 3.95 trillion pesos, slightly lower than the results that reported more than 4 trillion in 2021.
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The Superfinanciera’s balance sheet also indicates that the loan portfolio grew less than that reported in 2021, particularly due to the slowdown in the consumer portfolio. At the end of last year, the entities had borrowed 670 billion pesos, which allowed the depth indicator to stand at 45.8 percent of GDP.
“In real terms, the gross portfolio broke an annual variation of 3.2 percent, behavior that reflects the increase in the balance in inter-monthly terms (5.6 trillion pesos); the disbursements to households and companies for 49.9 billion; the effect of inflation and the lesser relative importance of penalties, which totaled nearly 13.6 trillion in the twelve months of 2022, which does not exceed those reported in 2021,” the surveillance and control entity specified.
And he stressed that while the commercial portfolio Completing 14 months with positive real growth, consumption continued to slow down, contributing 1.5 percentage points to the real growth of the total portfolio, with a real annual increase of 4.6 percent.
“Of this rate, 95.6 percent is explained by free investment, a product that accumulates real growth of 13.1 percent during the year, followed in order by credit card (7.8 percent), revolving ( 5.2 percent) and vehicle (3.7 percent). Disbursements reached 16.8 trillion pesos,” said the Superfinanciera.
Another of the relevant aspects of last year’s balance sheet of the financial sector is on the side of deposits. Term deposits closed last year with record growth compared to 2021.
At the end of the year, there was evidence of a monthly increase of 9 trillion in its nominal balance and a real growth of 28.6 percent (45.5 nominal percent). The balance with a maturity of more than one year reached 129 trillion, of which 76.8 trillion corresponded to deposits with a term of more than 18 months, that is, 34.5 percent of the total. The possession of CDT was distributed 67.5 percent in legal persons and official entities and 32.5 percent natural persons.
