NBS Bank positive on operating capacity
NBS Bank board chairperson Vizenge Kumwenda has said the bank is positive of increasing its operating capacity to more than 75 percent from the current 25 percent.
Kumwenda said this in Blantyre on Thursday during the bank’s stakeholders cocktail to formally launch the opening of rights issue which is expected to raise K11.8 billion.
He said the fact that the bank has been operating at less than 25 percent capacity but still growing its assets and deposits indicates that it is a strong bank.
Said Kumwenda: “The changes that we are implementing at the bank underpinning the five year business plan will make the bank perform better in all respects so that at the end of the day, investors, staff and customers are rewarded and get their returns.
“NBS Bank used to be among the top three, but we lost that position during the past four years to loans defaults which we had to make provisions for, legal claims against us which has cost us a lot of money, and flows in the bank.”
NBS chief executive officer Kwanele Ngwenya said some of the challenges the bank has been facing ranged from operational, credit, business performance, automated-teller machines (ATMs) branch set-up and online banking.
“We have already started implementing some changes and the results are emerging. We have so far invested in credit process monitoring and control, strengthened our line of defence and strengthened operations around distribution and online banking,” he said.
Team leader in the rights issue Thoko Mkavea of CDH Investment Bank said NBS Bank may have bottomed out with the share price at its lowest, and is operating in an environment which is profitable hence making a good buy.
The subscription period for the rights shares opened on May 29 2017 and will close on June 23 2017.
The bank is issuing over 2.18 billion new ordinary shares at K5.40 per share which is a discount from the market price of K6 through the rights issue.
