The National Microfinance Bank (NMB), has posted a staggering net profit of almost 132.5bn/- for its operations last year, mainly pushed up by net interest income.
The pro-poor bank, which has the widest network coverage of branches and ATMs, posted a net profit of 36.5bn/- at the quarter ended December 2013, doubling from 17.2bn/- of the corresponding period a year before.
The profit was mainly attributed to net interest income that generated 328.09bn/- last year against 278.6bn/- in 2012. The revenue from loans proceeds was driven up by expansion of the loan portfolio, which grew to 1.63tr/- from 1.50tr/- of the previous year while customer deposits rose to 2.55tri/- from 2.58tri/- of the previous quarter.
While prudent lending seems to have helped the bank to maintain lower non-performing assets (loans), below the industry rate, at 2.06 per cent, although is slightly up from 1.93 per cent of the previous quarter. The NPLs were down by almost 5bn/- to 25.8bn/-. The bank assets grew by 4.17 per cent to 3.29tr/- while customer deposits reached 2.55tr/- at the end of last year.
In 2005, the bank was privatised and partly divested its shareholding 49 per cent to a consortium led by the Coˆperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen- Boerenleenbank BA (‘Rabobank Group’). In 2008, the government offloaded its 30 per cent shares to the general public in an initial public offer (IPO) and NMB staff.
In the meantime, CRDB bank net income increased to 20.37bn/- in the quarter ended December last year compared to 20.11bn/- of the corresponding period 2012. Similarly the profit for the year jumped to 84.2bn/- from 77.8bn/- registered at the end of 2012.
The outstanding performance of the profit is attributed to the increase in net interest income to 234.6bn/- in the period under review from 206.15bn/- of the corresponding quarter in 2012.
The loans, advances and overdrafts jumped up to 1.98tri/- in the quarter in question compared to 1.90 recorded in the previous period. Similarly, customer deposits increased to 2.99tri/- compared to 2.85tri/-.
Source Tanzania Daily News
