Senior Reporter
peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt
Scotiabank T&T has announced a profit after taxation of $164 million for the quarter ended January 31, 2024.
In announcing its quarterly figures in a statement yesterday, Scotiabank explained this represented an increase of $4 million or three per cent when compared to the restated quarter ended January 31, 2023.
The release also noted that the group’s financial performance trending positively as total revenue, comprising of net interest income and other income, was $481 million for the period ended January 31 2024, an increase of $20 million or four per cent over the prior year while net interest income for the period was $346 million saw an increase of $19 million or six per cent.
Scotiabank stated the main driver was interest from loans to customers, increasing by $27 million or eight per cent based on loan growth with interest costs also increasing by $18 million over the same comparable period last year.
For the quarter ended January 31 2024, other income of $135 million increased by $1 million compared to the quarter ended January 31, 2023. This, Scotiabank said, was primarily due to an increase in insurance revenues by lower trading revenues, in line with industry challenges and prevailing market conditions.
Managing Director of Scotiabank T&T Limited, Gayle Pazos said, “Our first quarter results for fiscal 2024 demonstrate the continued strength of our diversified business lines. Our core performance continues to be driven by solid growth in our retail and commercial segments, with loans to customers growing by $1.4 billion or eight per cent over the prior comparative period, improving interest income by 11 per cent.
“Our customers continue to embrace our digital channels, with a digital adoption of 54.7 per cent and digital sales accounting for 27 per cent of total retail products including lending, deposits and credit cards. In Mid-2023, we were recognised by Euromoney as the market leader for digital solutions, highlighting the strength of our digital infrastructure and business model.”
The release also explained that on November 1 2023, Scotiabank T&T adopted the new accounting standard IFRS 17 insurance contracts, which replaced the previous insurance standard IFRS 4.
Scotiabank said the resultant impact of this is a change in income recognition from insurance revenues earned in the period in which policies were sold to one where revenues earned from insurance contracts are recorded over the life of the policies.
The impact of these changes is shown in our published January 31, 2024 financial statements.