STANDARD CHARTERED PROFIT INCREASES BY SH10.7BN

Dar es Salaam. The profit after tax for Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania Limited rose by 38 per cent last year, thanks to its continued disciplined and focused approach of doing business.

The bank reported in its financial statements that net profit rose to Sh39.1 billion during the 2017 calendar year, up from Sh28.378 billion in 2016. “This success is attributed to a continued disciplined and focused approach of doing business in the countries in which the bank is present. We are pleased with this strong performance in 2017.

Our main focus has been to execute our strategy which is solely centred on supporting our clients as they develop their businesses by introducing new ways of banking,” the bank’s chief executive officer, Mr Sanjay Rughani, told The Citizen yesterday.

In developing new ways of doing business, he said, the bank continued to enhance financial inclusion through leveraging on its digital platforms.

Standard Chartered Tanzania’s loan impairment numbers dropped by 62 per cent year-on-year as the bank managed to beat industry odds and maintain high profitability levels.

This outcome defies the trend of the industry which has registered falling profits last year due to the rising levels of loan impairment charges.

“We have continued to monitor our portfolio closely and hence continued resilience of the bank’s asset quality. Standard Chartered Bank has a strong internal risk management framework that enables us to track any loan impairment issues at their nascent and symptomatic stages thereby enabling us to tackle issues well in advance,” Mr Rughani said.

Looking forward to 2018, Standard Chartered Bank remains optimistic of its performance, banking on the strong client activity levels that have continued into the first quarter of this year, its unique banking solutions as well as its local and international capabilities.

Talking about some of the plans for the year, Mr Rughani said that the bank will continue to leverage on its digital capabilities and will soon be introducing another unique banking platform that will further simplify banking for its clients while maintaining the highest standards of speed and security.