NBC’s POSITIVE OUTLOOK FOR THE QUARTER ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2012
Dar es Salaam: NBC remained resilient in its performance turning
around after a difficult first half of the year to deliver and
impressive performance for the quarter ending 30th September 2012. The
bank recorded a profit before tax of TZS 5.9bn compared to a loss of
TZS 20.0bn recorded during the second quarter of 2012. The Managing
Director Mr. Lawrence Mafuru said “Our third quarter profit after tax
stands at TZS 4.2bn reducing our nine months cumulative loss to TZS
10.6bn. This is mainly attributed by improved interest and
non-interest income streams during the quarter under review. The main
contributor for this positive outlook comes from impairments line that
has gone down quite substantially following aggressive measures taken
by the bank to remediate its non-performing assets”. This year the
bank’s profitability has been negatively impacted by very high levels
of Non Performing Loans resulting from the famous 2008 global
financial crisis which affected both its corporate and retail loans
thus forcing the bank to apply very prudent and stringent impairment
policies. The bank has embarked on a number of initiatives and
projects that will see its operating model changing with a view of
streamlining operations and improve risk management and control
environment that in turn will give NBC sustainable growth in the
market. These changes are also aimed at improving NBC customer service
delivery and hopefully will be more cost effective. It is of the view
that, the year end cumulative position will be even better.
Mr. Mafuru added “We would like to thank our customers for their
continued support and also assure them and the general public that our
business is solid and the outlook is positive. The reported losses
during the first half of the year were mainly driven by unusually
large impairments items from specific big borrowers, some provisions
raised for cost and prior year under accruals related to IT costs and
technical assistance provided by our parent company ABSA group in
South Africa. These are one-off items and have since been normalised”.
Despite all the challenges and global economy slowing down, NBC
balance sheet remained resilient quarter on quarter, with good growth
recorded in debt securities/investment book compensating the shrinkage
in lending book due to a tight stance that taken in private credit
expansion to allow for its balance sheet cleaning. The shrinkage into
our customer deposits has largely been driven by huge quarterly
pay-out mainly being taxes and our conscious decision to let go
expensive institutional deposits.
NBC remains to be an important player in the country’s financial
services sector with 45 years of experience in the Tanzanian local and
regional market. Its lead position in offering conventional and
Islamic banking services through an extended branch network and ATM
foot print. NBC has well networked distribution channels including 52
branches, a fully fledged contact centre, 300 Visa and MasterCard
enabled ATM’s and 264 Point of Sale devices strategically located
throughout the country. The bank has employed 1,356 staff members at
the end of September 2012.