Henry Sy-led Banco De Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO) reported a net profit of P1.01 billion for the first three months of the year, 24.6 percent lower than P1.34 billion recorded in the same period last year.

However, core net income grew 45 percent from the year-ago level, owing to more loans and higher trading gains.

"The bank continued to show robust growth in loans, deposits, net interest income and fee-based income, with gains from its trading activities normalizing as the global financial markets stabilized," BDO said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

BDO's total interest income for the three-month period rose to P12.4 billion from P9.4 billion last year. Net interest income, on the other hand, reached P7 billion from P5.4 billion in the same period a year ago.

Gross customer loans jumped 25 percent year-on-year to P396.1 billion, driven by sustained demand from all market segments. Likewise, total deposits increased by 37 percent to P636.4 billion resulting from growth in low-cost deposits.

BDO's non-performing loan ratio also showed improvement to 3.2 percent as of end-March from 5.6 percent in the same period last year. The bank maintained its conservative outlook for the year by boosting provisions by 17 percent.

Trading and foreign exchange gains jumped 30 percent to P971 million while fee-based income rose 7 percent to P2.2 billion, due to higher contributions from investment banking, branch fees, trust and private banking, remittances, credit cards, cash management and bancassurance.

As of end-2008, BDO is the Philippines' largest bank in terms of assets, loans, and deposits.