(LEAD) KB Financial Q3 net rises over 6-fold

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in paras 3-6)
SEOUL, Oct. 28 (Yonhap) -- KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea's No. 2 banking group, said Friday its third-quarter earnings jumped more than six-fold on higher interest income and smaller loan-loss provision.
Net profit came to 579 billion won (US$524 million) in the July-September period, compared with 90.6 billion won a year earlier, the group said in a regulatory filing.
But net income declined 29.2 percent compared to the second quarter when it logged a one-off profit by selling stakes in Hyundai Engineering & Construction.
The third-quarter bottom line was lower than the market consensus of 636.1 billion won in a poll of analysts by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.
A rise in net income came as the group's provisions to cover credit loss fell 55.3 percent on-year to 288 billion won. Its profit margin also improved from a year earlier because it could charge more interest on loans amid the central bank's tight bias.
The group's net interest margin (NIM), a key barometer of profitability, reached 3.07 percent as of the end of September, up from 2.62 percent a year earlier.
Shares of KB Financial closed at 45,000 won on the main bourse, up 4.17 percent from Thursday's close. The third-quarter business results came out after the market closed.
Kookmin Bank, the flagship unit of the group, logged a net profit of 316.2 billion won during the last quarter, up 251 percent from a year ago.
The group's total assets reached 363.6 trillion won as of the end of September, up 30.2 trillion won from the end of last year.