CRDB PROFIT TUMBLES AS IT CLEANS UP BAD LOANS MESS

CRDB Bank pre-tax profit in 2017 tumbled by over 50 per cent last year due to increasing provisions for bad loans. According to the bank's financial statement the bank's profit before tax last year had plummeted to 46.9bn/- from 105bn/- made in 2016.

The decline which is equivalent slightly more than 55 per cent is attributed to measures adopted by the bank to cover up for impaired loans. CRDB Group pre-tax profit declined by slightly over half to 53.6bn/- last year from 111.8bn/- posted previous year.

“The decrease is primarily attributed to accelerate provisioning to enhance coverage of impaired loans from 32 per cent in 2016 to 59 per cent,” the statement issued by Managing Director, Charles Kimei, partly reads.

According to the statement, the bank managed to reduce non-performing loans with their ratio to total gross loans slightly declining from 14.1 per cent in 2016 to 12.6 per cent for the bank.

The non-performing loan ratio to total gross loans for the CRDB Group also fell from 14 per cent to 12.4 per cent. However, the bank has posted a nine-per cent balance sheet growth as total assets grew to almost 6.0tri/- last year.

The bank assets grew from 5.4tri/- in 2016 to 5.9tri/- last year to cement its position as the largest bank in the country in terms of balance sheet.

Dr Kimei said the bank would continue to maintain a strong balance sheet amid transforming its credit management process. “We are confident that the Group will continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with positive performance,” Dr Kimei said in a note to explain financial statement.

The bank, however, said the focus in this year was to continuously enhance its service delivery ecosystem geared to achieve customer experience.

The bank total deposits recorded a growth of 5.0 per cent to 4.3tri/- from 4.1tri/- to enable the Group to maintain its market command of 20 per cent. To lend more, the “bank is also working towards transforming its credit management process to achieve efficiency and maintain quality loan portfolio,” Dr Kimei said.

The bank, supported by largest branch-network of 255 branches, loaned out 2.88tri/- in 2017 lower than 3.24tri/- in 2016.

The bank shares traded at 170/- a piece yesterday at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange slightly down from 200/- at the opening of the year. Nevertheless, the full year performance showed that the basic earnings per share dropped to 13/90 from 26/60.

The bank announced yesterday a dividend of 5/- for full paid up share. At the end of last year the bank workforce reached 3,164 staff while ATM ballooned to 551 and Fahari- Huduma agents’ stand at 3,286.

DailyNews