Franklin Hayford, chairman of Trust Bank Gambia Limited, has said that the bank’s interest income increased by 25.8% (666.3 million Gambian dalasis) due to an increase in lending as well as an increase in investment in government securities.
Chairman Hayford made these remarks at the 2022 Trust Bank Annual General Meeting held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel. He also said that profit before tax increased by 93.03% (346.4 million Gambian dalasis).
He added that total assets increased to 10.487 billion Gambian dalasis, while customer deposits grew to 9.2 billion Gambian dalasis (3.7%). However, he stated that the group’s performance in 2022 showed significant progress in the steps they believe will lead to sustainable growth in financial returns. He added that they had achieved growth in profitability despite difficult market conditions.
Total operating costs excluding impairment increased by 13.9 percent to 568.2 million Gambian dalasi (GMD) in line with inflation and the general rise in the prices of goods and services. He added that net loans and advances increased by 98 percent to 4.5 billion GMD. According to him, loan impairment increased from 179,000 GMD to 37.3 million GMD in 2022. However, he stressed that there had been no significant deterioration in the credit quality of the loan book, although stress still exists.
“The increase in the cost of writing down the value of assets was mainly due to the increase in the number of loans issued, but the ratio of non-performing loans remained low at 0.7 percent, which was a slight improvement from 0.8 percent in 2021,” he revealed.
Also, he remarked that earnings per share had increased by 65 percent from 75 cents per share in 2021 to 124 cents per share in 2022. Also, he revealed that the bank’s capital adequacy ratio was 17 percent, which was well above the minimum regulatory requirement of 10 percent. “This will give us room to support our customers with access to loans,” he concluded.
