BLOM Bank published its unaudited financial statements for the year 2021 revealing a sharp 70.66% y-o-y rise in net after tax profit to $4.44 million, up from $2.60 million in 2020. Said figure, however, incorporates a $100.07 million extraordinary net profit from discontinued operations, which when factored out would result in an after-tax loss from continuing operations of around $95.62 million. In details, the bank’s net interest income rose by 27.11% y-o-y to around $1,490.90 million, outweighing the 42.12% drop in net fee & commission income to $56.48 million, noting that net losses on financial assets & other operating income amounted to $459.96 million (compared to a smaller loss of $101.20 million in 2020). More specifically, the bank booked a net loss on financial assets at Fair Value Through Profit or Loss (FVTPL) of $491.48 million, net gain on financial operations of $0.51 million and other operating income of $31.02 million. The increase in net interest income owes to the sizeable decrease in the cost of funds as banks lowered interest rates paid on customer deposits to near zero levels particularly on foreign currency deposits. It is worth noting that the bank recorded some $713.74 million in net impairment loss on financial assets in 2021. In this respect, net operating income dropped by 8.43% y-o-y to $373.69 million. However, the bank’s total operating expenses rose by 8.06% in 2021 to $307.10 million. On the balance sheet front, BLOM Bank’s consolidated assets contracted by 10.93% in 2021 to $26.47 billion particularly owing to a $2.77 billion drop in assets held for sale, coupled with a 28.13% ($877.84 million) contraction in the net loans portfolio to $2.24 billion and a 0.21% ($38.09 million) decrease in cash and balances with Central Banks to $18.36 billion. In addition, the bank’s financial assets held at FVTPL soared by 106.35% in 2021 to $314.81 million, with those booked at fair value through other comprehensive income rising by 38.58% to $42.63 million and those held at amortized cost increasing by 1.86% to $3.59 billion. Customer deposits, moreover, dropped by 3.36% ($708.21 million) in 2021 to around $20.36 billion. In this context, the bank’s ratio of net loans-to-customer deposits regressed to 11.02% in 2021, with shareholders’ equity ending the year down by 0.08% at $3.18 billion.