Logo of KakaoBank shown at the headquarters of the internet bank in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of KakaoBank

KakaoBank has once again broken its record-high quarterly performance in first quarter earnings, the internet-only bank said Wednesday.

The bank posted a net profit of 111.2 billion won ($81.4 million), a 9.1 percent increase from the first quarter of last year.

The bank's operating profit stood at 148.4 billion won, an 8.8 percent jump year-on-year. The quarterly profit is higher than those of some regional banks, such as BNK Kyongnam Bank, Kwangju Bank and Jeonbuk Bank, which stand at about 101.2 billion won, 73.1 billion won and 50.8 billion won, respectively.

The internet-only bank's solid performance during the first quarter is mainly attributed to the increase in its market share in the loan refinancing market, which was led by government initiatives to lower the public's burden on interest rate costs. The bank accounts for about 31 percent of entire loan refinancing transactions.

After taking over the key portions of the loan refinancing market early this year, the mobile bank's loan balances rapidly expanded.

In particular, the balance of mortgages has increased by about 29 percent in just three months, reaching 11.8 trillion won at the end of March, from 9.1 trillion won at the end of last year.

As a result, the internet-only bank recorded 582.3 billion won in interest income, a whopping 29 percent jump from the same quarter last year.

The mobile bank has also attracted new customers. The bank has newly added over 700,000 new customers in the quarter, with its entire number of customers reaching over 23.56 million.

"KakaoBank's robust growth in the first quarter is attributed to its demonstration of competitive capabilities in the refinancing loan platform for mortgages that began in January," Kim Do-ha, analyst at Hanwha Investment & Securities, said.

Logos of three internet-only banks

Unlike major commercial banks and regional lenders that suffered from various setbacks this year, including massive compensation cases related to mis-selling of equity-linked securities and rising delinquency rates involving heightened risks from real estate project financing, three internet-only banks in the country — KakoBank, Kbank and Toss Bank — are all expected to post healthy growth numbers this year.

Following in the footsteps of lucrative earnings by KakaoBank that began yielding net profits in 2020, Kbank has been generating net profits since 2021. Since then, Kbank has continued to record net profits annually, posting a net profit of 128 billion won last year.

Toss Bank is also anticipated to make a turnaround in net profitability this year.

The bank began recording quarterly profits from the third quarter of last year, and it is highly expected that the mobile bank will succeed in achieving annual profitability this year. The bank's foreign currency account has also secured over a million customers, since the account's launch in January.

Kbank is slated to announce its first-quarter earnings early next week, and Toss Bank plans to release its first-quarter performance at the end of this month.