GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd (The Group) has re­alised in­come af­ter tax­a­tion of $119 mil­lion for the sec­ond quar­ter end­ed April 30, 2020, a de­crease of $39 mil­lion or 25 per cent over the com­par­a­tive quar­ter end­ed April 30, 2019.

In a state­ment the bank said year to date, the Group has re­alised in­come af­ter tax­a­tion of $262 mil­lion ver­sus the pri­or year com­par­a­tive of $343 mil­lion, a de­crease of $81 mil­lion or 24 per cent.

“As we not­ed in our first quar­ter fi­nan­cial re­sults an­nounce­ment, our year to date per­for­mance was im­pact­ed by two sig­nif­i­cant ad­just­ments: $22 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al pro­vi­sion for cred­it loss­es re­lat­ed to cer­tain changes in as­sump­tions in our IFRS 9 eco­nom­ic sce­nario as­sess­ment and a tax cred­it record­ed by the in­sur­ance sub­sidiary in 2019,” the bank said.

It said ex­clud­ing the im­pact of these ad­just­ments, the Group’s year to date per­for­mance has de­clined by 10 per cent over the pri­or year.

As a re­sult Re­turn on Eq­ui­ty has de­creased to 12.76 per cent and Re­turn on As­sets to 2.02 per cent for the six months end­ed April 30, 2020.

It not­ed that based on the Group’s per­for­mance, the Board of Di­rec­tors has ap­proved a sec­ond div­i­dend of 40 cents per or­di­nary share payable by Ju­ly 10, 2020 to share­hold­ers on record as at June 19, 2020.

Stephen Bag­narol, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor said the bank is weath­er­ing the storm this storm, backed by a sol­id bal­ance sheet.

He said the bank is re­spond­ing to the COVID-19 cri­sis by bring­ing re­lief to cus­tomers through dif­fer­ent so­lu­tions, for in­stance Cus­tomer As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, which has helped pro­vide fi­nan­cial re­lief to over 64,000 cus­tomers.

“Our dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion has al­so giv­en our cus­tomers the sup­port they need to help them con­duct their busi­ness faster, eas­i­er and more se­cure­ly,” Bag­narol said.

The bank al­so not­ed that the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic cou­pled with the sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in oil and gas prices, has re­sult­ed in un­prece­dent­ed de­clines in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, ul­ti­mate­ly im­pact­ing the Group’s in­come state­ment.

“To­ward the end of the quar­ter tax­a­tion end­ing in April, our Group’s fi­nan­cial re­sults would have had a rel­a­tive­ly greater im­pact as busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go stalled for six weeks due to the COVID-19 lock down mea­sures,” the bank said.