Suhyup Bank, the credit and banking division of South Korea's fisheries cooperative, said Monday its earnings tumbled more than 18 percent in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

The lender, affiliated with the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, said its pre-tax net profit came to 233.6 billion won ($209 million) last year, down 18.1 percent from a year earlier.

The drop resulted mainly from increased loan loss provisions in the wake of the country's COVID-19 outbreak that has hit smaller merchants and companies hard.

The bank, however, did not provide the exact amount of loan loss reserves, as an audit was still under way.

Suhyup Bank's assets totaled 52.57 trillion won as of the end of December last year, up 4.97 trillion won from a year earlier.

The ratio of loans more than three months overdue to total lending stood at 0.44 percent as of end-December, down 0.02 percentage point from a year earlier, the bank added. (Yonhap)