South Korea’s savings banks recorded about 760 billion won ($550 million) in first-half net profit, up nearly 200% and their strongest first-half performance in four years, largely because loan-loss provisions fell. The 20 largest savings banks by assets accounted for 574.6 billion won, up 394 billion won, or 218%, from 180.6 billion won, with lower real-estate project-financing provisions and higher securities gains supporting the recovery. Sector-wide provisions fell 260.8 billion won year on year to 1.3942 trillion won, while the loan-loss provisioning ratio declined to 107.9% at the end of June from 113.7% a year earlier and 112.0% at the end of last year. A separate non-performing loan coverage ratio calculated across 79 savings banks improved to 72.12% from 65.12% but remained below full coverage. Despite stronger earnings, loans at the top 20 banks rose only 0.3% year on year to 68.2124 trillion won, reflecting caution over delinquency, higher interest rates, weak regional property markets and troubled real-estate project-financing loans. The Financial Supervisory Service said it would seek stronger loss-absorbing capacity through sufficient provisioning and capital increases.