Stanbic Bank nudges up after-tax profit by 39% to $26m

August 6, 2019 in Business, Companies, Finance by Editor

Being the leading lender, Mweheire said Stanbic Bank remains a key enabler in major sectors of Uganda’s economy.

August 6—Stanbic Bank Uganda recorded exceptional half year results, posting a 39.5% year-on-year increase in its Profit After Tax which grew from UGX 96.1 billion (about $26 million) in June 2018 to UGX 134 billion (about $36 million) at the end of June 2019.

Commenting on the bank’s performance this morning, Patrick Mweheire the, Chief Executive said, “This strong performance is largely attributed to the significant growth in interest income as more liquidity was deployed in higher yielding customer assets and revenue from trading activities.

In addition, customer deposits grew by 9.6% to UGX 4.1 trillion (just over $1 billion) by June 2019 compared to UGX 3.75 trillion in June 2018.  This was supported by our emphasis on client centricity and focusing on deepening our client relations as well as nurturing new customer relationships.”

Mweheire said the Stanbic loan book continues to register double digit growth, accounting for the largest market share across the industry. By the end of June 2019, it grew by 21.6% to UGX 2.7 trillion  from UGX2.3 trillion in June 2018.

“The growth has been largely due to improved economic activity as credit growth across all customer segments improved.  We remain a key enabler in major sectors of Uganda’s economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction, on top of also helping to underpin small medium enterprises (SMEs),” he said.

Speaking during the release of the bank’s interim results Sam Mwogeza, the Stanbic Chief Financial Officer said, “The bank’s total assets increased by 17.9% to UGX 6.1 trillion up from UGX 5.1 trillion the previous year. This means the bank is in a better position to support major development projects and further facilitate economic growth. This strong growth was supported by increased customer deposits. This excess liquidity was appropriately deployed across the different asset classes, mainly customer loans, government securities and interbank lending.”

Mweheire said Stanbic will continue to focus on skilling the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are the engine of growth for Uganda’s economy, employing over 2.5 million people. This is more than the corporate private sector at approximately 800,000.

To date, the incubator has successfully trained three sets of groups and a total of 1062 entrepreneurs from 300 small and medium enterprises have graduated from the incubator,” he said.

He said, “In the next half of the year, we shall be launching regional incubator centres in Mbarara, Mbale and Gulu in order to provide the same training and development opportunities for SMEs based upcountry. Generally as a bank, we shall continue to focus on delivering on our strategy and our priority remains ensuring we understand our clients’ needs and support their growth aspirations.”