Sco­tia­bank T&T Ltd has re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax­a­tion of $449 mil­lion for the nine months end­ed Ju­ly 2026, a de­crease of $82 mil­lion or 15.47 per cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

In its re­sults for the quar­ter end­ed Ju­ly 31, 2026, Sco­tia­bank re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax was $148 mil­lion, an in­crease of $43 mil­lion or 22 per cent com­pared to the per­for­mance in the pri­or quar­ter.

This re­duc­tion in prof­itabil­i­ty for both pe­ri­ods is main­ly due to the as­set levy on com­mer­cial banks, which was an­nounced as part of the 2026 bud­get mea­sures and be­came ef­fec­tive on Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, the bank ex­plained.

Com­ment­ing on the re­sults, chair­man and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank T&T, Derek Hud­son and Gayle Pa­zos, said, “The group ex­pe­ri­enced a sub­stan­tial in­crease in non-in­ter­est ex­pense of $103 mil­lion or 16 per cent large­ly as a re­sult of the Jan­u­ary 2026 in­tro­duc­tion of a sub­stan­tial new as­set tax, levied against fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.”

The bank’s di­rec­tors al­so said the im­pact of the as­set tax is al­so re­flect­ed in its ef­fec­tive tax rate, which in­creased from 35 per cent to 37 per cent.

The di­rec­tors added the group con­tin­ues to post a com­pet­i­tive re­turn on eq­ui­ty (ROE) of 12.52 per cent and re­turn on as­sets (ROA) of 1.91 per cent, while im­prov­ing the div­i­dend pay­out ra­tio to 83 per cent with a third quar­ter div­i­dend of 70 cents.

“Our com­mend­able third quar­ter re­sults re­flect the strength and sta­bil­i­ty of our bank and the con­tin­ued con­fi­dence our cus­tomers have in us.

“We have built on the mo­men­tum of the sec­ond quar­ter with to­tal rev­enue growth quar­ter over quar­ter of sev­en per cent, dri­ven by good growth in our re­tail port­fo­lio. Our in­sur­ance and wealth busi­ness lines con­tin­ue to de­liv­er strong growth, con­tribut­ing 23 per cent of over­all group net in­come, up from 18 per cent last year. This per­for­mance was sup­port­ed by sev­en per cent growth in mu­tu­al funds and four per cent growth in in­sur­ance pol­i­cy­hold­er funds, fur­ther ad­vanc­ing our di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy.”

Hud­son and Pa­zos added that as eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty mod­er­ates, the bank ex­pects con­di­tions to re­main sub­dued as it ap­proach­es the end of the year.

“Nev­er­the­less, our con­tin­ued fo­cus on cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and dig­i­tal ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty has en­abled us to grow our busi­ness lines de­spite an in­creas­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment,” she added.

The Sco­tia­bank di­rec­tors said they al­so had the plea­sure to meet with the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, to­geth­er with se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al Sco­tia­bank ex­ec­u­tives, to dis­cuss op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en re­la­tion­ships, ex­pand col­lab­o­ra­tion, and con­tribute to build­ing a more re­silient econ­o­my.

“The dis­cus­sion was pos­i­tive and re­in­forced the im­por­tance of con­tin­ued part­ner­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor. The bank re­mains firm­ly com­mit­ted to the fu­ture of the lo­cal econ­o­my and to sup­port­ing sus­tain­able growth for our cus­tomers, com­mu­ni­ties, and cit­i­zens,” she stat­ed.