Stanbic Bank Uganda recorded exceptional half year results, posting a 39.5% year-on-year increase in its Profit After Tax which grew from UGX 96.1 billion in June 2018 to UGX 134 billion at the end of June 2019.
Commenting on the bank’s performance, Patrick Mweheire, Chief Executive Stanbic Bank said, “We’ve had a remarkable performance over the past six months underpinned by our customer centric approach and the strength of our diversified businesses. Our Profits after Tax grew almost 40% year-on-year from UGX 96.1 Billion in June 2018 to UGX 134.1 Billion at the end of June 2019; Customer deposits grew approximately 10% to exceed UGX 4.1 trillion up from UGX 3.75 trillion in June 2018. We continued to extend the most new credit in the sector – approximately UGX 400 billion in new credit – which grew our loan portfolio by 21.6% to UGX 2.7 trillion from UGX 2.3 trillion in June 2018.”
He further added, “The growth has been largely due to improved economic activity as credit growth across all customer segments improved. We remain a key enabler in major sectors of Uganda’s economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction, on top of also helping to underpin small medium enterprises (SMEs).”
Speaking during the release of the bank’s interim results Sam Mwogeza, the Stanbic Chief Financial Officer said, “The bank’s total assets increased by 17.9% to UGX 6.1 trillion up from UGX 5.1 trillion the previous year. This means the bank is in a better position to support major development projects and further facilitate economic growth. This strong growth was supported by increased customer deposits. This excess liquidity was appropriately deployed across the different asset classes, mainly customer loans, government securities and interbank lending.”
Mweheire said Stanbic, through the Business Incubator, will continue to focus on skilling the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are the engine of growth for Uganda’s economy, employing over 2.5 million people. This is more than the corporate private sector at approximately 800,000 people. “To date, the Stanbic incubator has successfully trained three sets of groups and a total of 1062 entrepreneurs from 300 small and medium enterprises have graduated from the incubator,” he said.
“In the next half of the year, we shall continue to focus on strengthening our propositions by providing solutions that meet our clients’ needs and help them achieve their aspirations. We believe that focusing on the client is the reason for our robust double-digit balance sheet growth across deposits, loans and trade and ultimately the reason for our client revenue growth of ~11% in the first half of the year. We will continue this focus into the second half of the year through customizing services, focusing on meeting client service level agreements, delivering client journeys and transforming the bank into an organization that is future ready.” Mr. Mweheire concluded.