Barclays Bank, the giant retail bank in the country, saw its profit before tax jumping-up 19 percent, in the six months to end of June, driven by the strong performance of treasury especially in the personal banking segment.
According to the report, profit before tax stood at P 165 million, against P 138.5 million while net interest income stood at P 212 million or 15 percent better compared to the previous year.
Treasury banking’s profits before tax was at a sterling P 62.5 million against P35 million in the comparable period last year.
“Profit before income tax has risen 19 percent during the first half of the year, driven by strong performance of the treasury division through innovative structured products and strong performance in the personal banking segment,” Chief Executive Officer, Thuli Johnson said.
The bank rolled-out a number of products last year such as Premier banking – targeted at the rising number of millionaires – which is aimed at complementing services offered through Prestige branches. Some of the efforts which were put in place included an aggressive move that promoted the use of credit cards as another measure of providing world class service.
“We have embarked on a customer service revolution programme aimed at ensuring we deliver world class customer service. We are delighted with the feedback our customers are giving us in this respect and we are confident of our success to get it right,” he added.
The bank’s results point out that during the period it got strong support from retail banking-mainly made up of personal loans as it contributed P 118.4 million of income before tax on a loan book of P 2.9 billion. However, corporate banking came at a distant second at nearly P 60 million. But it took charge of P 8 million on non-performing loans up from P 2.3 million.
“Operating costs are being well managed within inflation and impairments have increased in line with management’s expectations,” the bank said at a time when interest rates are at their pick in years.
