An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Sco­tia­bank T&T Group has record­ed a net in­come af­ter tax­a­tion of $678 mil­lion for the year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31, 2023.

This rep­re­sents a de­crease of $6 mil­lion or one per cent from the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od in 2022.  

Re­shard Mo­hammed, Sco­tia’s vice-pres­i­dent, chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer and chief ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer spoke about the bank’s fi­nances at its an­nu­al meet­ing of share­hold­ers which was held at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel yes­ter­day.

He said de­spite the small de­cline, this is the sec­ond suc­ces­sive year that the bank has post­ed net in­come be­fore tax of over $1 bil­lion, fol­low­ing a record high in 2022. He said this rep­re­sents its sec­ond-high­est prof­it ever record­ed in the bank’s his­to­ry.  

Mo­hammed al­so in­di­cat­ed that the bank’s op­er­at­ing ef­fi­cien­cy re­mains strong at 42 per cent and the div­i­dend pay­out ra­tio al­so re­mained strong at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 73 per cent.

The ex­ec­u­tive fur­ther out­lined that the group’s op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy ra­tio, de­fined as non-in­ter­est ex­pens­es as a per­cent­age of to­tal rev­enue, de­clined from 39 per cent, to 42 per cent in 2023. This, he said, re­flect­ed the im­pact of lighter trad­ing in­come, in­fla­tion­ary im­pact on the group’s ex­pense pro­file, and in­creased tech­nol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion spend­ing in line with its dig­i­tal strat­e­gy.  

“We con­tin­ue to be the mar­ket leader in this ra­tio with our com­peti­tors re­flect­ing ra­tios of well over 50 per cent,” Mo­hammed said.

Al­so, he said its share price has de­clined by $5.46 or sev­en per cent over the last year, re­flect­ing the chal­lenges ex­pe­ri­enced gen­er­al­ly with­in the over­all lo­cal stock mar­ket.  

Speak­ing on strong gov­er­nance and lead­er­ship Gayle Pa­zos, se­nior vice-pres­i­dent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank T&T Ltd, said the bank re­in­forced its strong risk cul­ture through the Sco­tia­bank Code of Con­duct and on­go­ing train­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance ac­tiv­i­ties and com­pen­sa­tion pro­grammes.  

Fur­ther, Pa­zos not­ed that the bank in pro­tect­ing client’s in­for­ma­tion, has a strong wall of de­fences to pro­tect da­ta from any kind of breach­es.  

“Our cy­ber re­spon­si­bil­i­ty doesn’t end with our in­ter­nal de­fences. We al­so help ed­u­cate our clients and keep them in­formed about threats and scams and how to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies from fraud,” she ex­plained.