CRDB trades way through Q4 to land historic profit

CRDB Group CEO and Managing Director Abdulmajid Nsekela

DAILY NEWS Reporter

CRDB Bank rode strong net income to post its best ever-quarter net profit since inception crediting a just-ended five years business plan.

The bank, one of the largest lenders in the country, said in a statement that its profit after tax grew by 31 per cent to 353bn/- in last year’s fourth quarter—the highest ever.

CRDB Group CEO and Managing Director Abdulmajid Nsekela said the results were driven by the bank’s concerted efforts to grow non-funded income.

“This was driven by an increase in revenue following concerted efforts to grow non-funded income,” said the bank in a statement on Sunday.

The net interest income increased by 13 per cent to 713bn/- last year from 630bn/- in 2021 pushed up by an increment on loans and advances.

“The group ended the year with a strong set of results,” CRDB Boss said.

The quarterly profitability, the highest the bank ever raked up in its history, was pushed by strong balance sheet growth driven by an increase in net loans and advances.

The huge profitability translates to an increase in the portion of corporate social responsibility since the bank policy set aside 1.0 per cent of profit toward CSR.

The loan disbursement went up by 36 per cent to 6.878tri/- from 5.040tri/- in a similar period last year.

Total assets grew 32 per cent to 11.646tri/- from 8.818tri/-, while customer deposits rose 27 per cent to 8.141tri/- from 6.434tri/-.

In the year, lender’s NPL ratio continued to decline, reaching 2.8 per cent last December.

“This is a significant improvement from 12.7 per cent recorded in the same period in 2017,” Mr Nsekela said.

The bank managed to push down the cost-to-income (CIR) ratio to 49.40 per cent from 55.30per cent.

The bank in the last five years saw its profitability climbing from 64bn/- in 2018 to 268bn/- in 2021. In the last year’s first half its net profit climbed to 174bn/- and now 353bn/- in quarter four of last year.

CIR dropped from 67 per cent in 2018 to 49 per cent of last year while NPL plummeted from 9.0 per cent to 2.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.