An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Ja­maica's NCB Fi­nan­cial Group (NCBFG) yes­ter­day re­port­ed a 56 per cent re­duc­tion in its net prof­it for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023.

The group's chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer, Mal­colm Sadler, an­nounced its per­for­mance for 2023 dur­ing an in­vestor brief­ing yes­ter­day.

“The group re­port­ed a con­sol­i­dat­ed net prof­it of J$15.3 bil­lion for the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 2023, that's a J$19.8 bil­lion or 56 per cent re­duc­tion from the pri­or year. The net prof­it at­trib­ut­able to our share­hold­ers was J$7.6 bil­lion for the year, rep­re­sent­ing a 68 per cent or J$16.3 bil­lion re­duc­tion, when com­pared to the pri­or year," Sadler said.

He al­so an­nounced that the fi­nan­cial con­glom­er­ate's op­er­at­ing rev­enue fell to J$137.3 bil­lion, a re­duc­tion of 6 per cent from the pri­or year.

Salder not­ed that the low­er net rev­enues from in­sur­ance ac­tiv­i­ties re­sult­ed in an over­all re­duc­tion in op­er­at­ing in­come.

On the bank­ing side, Sadler said the rev­enues from bank­ing and in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ties to­talled J$113.0 bil­lion for the year, which in­creased by 5 per cent or J$5.7 bil­lion over the pre­vi­ous year.

Salder ex­plained that the main con­trib­u­tors to the in­crease were net in­ter­est in­come and gains on for­eign cur­ren­cy and in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ties, which in­creased by J$3.6 bil­lion and J$3.7 bil­lion, re­spec­tive­ly.

“The growth in the loans and in­vest­ment se­cu­ri­ties port­fo­lios along with in­creased yields for some in­ter­est-earn­ing as­sets were the main dri­vers of the im­proved net in­ter­est in­come. Gains on in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ties were pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed by un­re­alised fair val­ue gains on eq­ui­ty in­vest­ments des­ig­nat­ed as fair val­ue through prof­it and loss,” he de­tailed.

On the up­side, he said net fee and com­mis­sion in­come im­proved by J$1.9 bil­lion or 7 per cent, pri­mar­i­ly due to in­creased card trans­ac­tion vol­umes in the pay­ment ser­vices seg­ment and cred­it-re­lat­ed fees on new loans booked in the Con­sumer & SME Bank­ing seg­ment.

“These in­creas­es were par­tial­ly off­set by a 95 per cent or J$2.6 bil­lion in­crease in cred­it im­pair­ment pro­vi­sions, which rose to J$5.3 bil­lion, re­flect­ing a nor­mal lev­el of ex­pect­ed cred­it loss­es (ECL). The pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year in­clud­ed re­ver­sals of ECL charges due to the im­proved eco­nom­ic out­look.”

Gen­er­al in­sur­ance record­ed an op­er­at­ing prof­it of J$11.6 bil­lion, al­most dou­bling the pri­or year’s per­for­mance. He said this was dri­ven by an in­crease in net in­sur­ance rev­enues, due to the main­te­nance of poli­cies, cou­pled with new busi­ness.

“Prin­ci­pal­ly from op­er­a­tions in the Dutch Caribbean and Bermu­da and in­creased oth­er in­come to­geth­er with re­duced op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es.”

NCBFG chair­man, Michael Lee-Chin an­nounced last Fri­day that the com­pa­ny would pay an in­ter­im div­i­dend of J$0.50 or TT$0.02 on De­cem­ber 18, 2023, for share­hold­ers on record as at De­cem­ber 04, 2023.