NBS Bank touts growth, to consolidate gains
NBS Bank plc has pledged to consolidate gains made over the past two years while repositioning itself to be among the country’s top three commercial banks.
The bank’s board chairperson Vizenge Kumwenda said this on Wednesday on the sidelines of the bank’s 15th Annual General Meeting in Blantyre.
He said the Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE)-listed bank plans to continue growing capital organically through profits, optimisation of the statement of financial position and recovery of previously written-off debt.
However, Kumwenda, who is also managing director of Nico Holdings plc, said with interest rates going down, the bank’s focus will be on increasing its lending space and moving some of its capital from the money market to grow the lending book.
“Interest rates in the banking industry have gone down significantly which has cost us margins we get from lending,” he said.
One of the bank’s minority shareholders, Frank Harawa, said he is looking forward to the day NBS Bank will resume paying dividends.
In the year under review, the bank reported a K1.7 billion profit after-tax, which is a huge leap—a growth of over 250 percent—from a loss of K1.092 billion reported during the same period last year, according to audited financial results for the year ended December 31 2018. In the year under review, net interest income grew by 35 percent while non-interest income increased by 52 percent year-on-year.
