KARACHI, Aug 20: The pre-tax profit of Faysal Bank Ltd. fell to Rs664 million in six months to June 2002 against Rs925 million for the whole year of 2001.

The bank said in a statement that it earned this much profit despite a one-off net tax disadvantage from reduced tax rate for banks.

The federal budget 2002-03 has further reduced the tax rate for banks from 50 to 47 per cent. This three per cent tax relief for the half year ended June 30 2002 amounts to approximately Rs18 million but the restatement of deferred tax assets at the same tax reduction rate amounted to Rs29 million resulting in a net disadvantage of Rs11 million.

Another factor that lowered the bank’s profit was that it transferred an additional Rs55 million to general provisions, over the amount required under the SBP prudential regulations.

Net markup based revenue of the bank increased to Rs542 million in spite of the planned repatriation of swap deposits of around Rs9 billion by the bank to its group entities resulting in decrease in the overall asset base.