NBC profit rises 10 times in Q3

DAILY NEWS Reporter

NATIONAL Bank of Commerce (NBC) has posted a ten-time pre-tax profit increase, thanks to business expansion in third quarter.

The pre-tax profit for the bank which was once the largest in the economy, rose to 12.31bn/- from 1.32bn/- in similar quarter last year. The profit was pushed up by net interest income generated 35.27bn/- in Q3 up from 31.88bn/- in Q3 last year.
The interest income raise was backed by surging lending portfolio that increased by almost 20bn/- to 826.34bn/- from 807.88bn/-. The loan amount helped assets to grow to 2.04tri/- from 1.99tri/- but deposits dropped slightly to 1.43tri/-at the end of September from 1.45tri/- at June.
Nevertheless, non-interest income increased to 15.78bn/- from 12.5bn/- in Q3 last year—pushed mainly by fees and commissions that raked over two third of the portfolio. During the quarter under review, the bank closed one branches to remain with 51, and increased its workforce by one staff to 1,207.
On year-to-year cumulative the bank pre-tax profit also jumped some 80 per cent to 20.89bn/- at the end of September.
The profit also was pushed by net interest income which raked in 101.47bn/- against 90.39bn/-. NBC despite of having a strong balance sheet, the non-performing loans have climbed to 13.4 per cent from 8.3 per cent. NBC before nationalised in 1967 was Barclays Tanzania and in 2000 was privatised and sold to South Africa’s ABSA Group. Before privatised in 1997 the bank was split to two and formed NMB Bank