Capeverdean Business Bank profits rise 17% in 2022 to €4.7 million

Banco Caboverdiano de Negócios (BCN) recorded profits of €4.7 million in 2022, an increase of almost 17% compared to the previous year, indicating the institution’s report and accounts, consulted today by Lusa.

According to the document, despite the profits generated by that bank – which was led for several years by the Portuguese ex-Banif – shareholders maintain the option of “not distributing dividends” in the 2018-2022 horizon to “enhance its activity,” as “prudent position and to strengthen the bank’s equity.”

The bank closed the 2022 accounts with a net income of more than €4.7 million, an increase of 16.9% compared to profits of €4 million in 2021.

In that year, profits had already grown 51%, and in the previous year, another almost 6%.

“BCN is today the only 100% national bank operating in Cape Verde.”

“Our history originates with the opening, in February 1996, of a branch of Banco Totta & Açores de Portugal in the city of Praia, Santiago Island,” recalls the report and accounts of the institution, which marked 25 years of activity in 2022.

“The year now ending marked the end of a strategic cycle [2018-2022] whose execution, very well achieved, allowed the bank to double its size [in credit granted, customer resources, and equity] and, consequently, consolidate its position in the Cape Verdean financial market, being, at this moment, the third largest Cape Verdean Bank,” reads the message from the board of directors included in the report and accounts.

“Alongside the balance sheet balance, the bank continues to show high solidity, with a capital ratio of 15.8%, continuing to present comfortable levels of coverage of non-performing loans by impairments, 86.1%, and a high level of operational efficiency with an efficiency ratio of 42.6%,” the document also stresses.

It also adds that the administration has begun “to outline a new strategic cycle for the next five years.

“The new Strategic Plan, despite the context of high risk and uncertainties, was prepared with a view to repositioning the bank in the Cape Verdean financial market, maintaining the focus on prioritizing what generates value for the client and focusing on solutions that allow innovation, while we will invest in cultural transformation and the introduction of an efficient working model and strengthening the capacity of our team.”

“This repositioning will allow us to achieve our major strategy, which is to be the best commercial bank in the country anchored in prudent and sustainable management”, he also refers.

BCN is led by the Cape Verdean insurance company Ímpar, with a share of 86.76%, and is also participated by the Cape Verdean Red Cross (4.44%) and several private investors (8.80%), with a total social capital of €8.1 million on December 31, 2022.

With 181 employees and two dozen branches at the end of last December, the NCB closed 2022 with a customer loan portfolio (gross) of over €206.8 million, up 7.2% from 2021, while customer resources (essentially demand or time deposits) grew 9.6% to €234.5 million.

The bank’s equity increased 16% in 2022 to €33.8 million, a change explained by the net results for the year and the non-distribution of dividends for the previous year.

Defaulting loans at the NCB went from 8.3% of total loans in 2020 to 5.5% in 2021, but in 2022 it increased to 6.8%, equivalent to more than €13.3 million.

By the end of 2022, the NCB’s total assets exceeded €302 million, up 15.1% from the previous year, while liabilities rose 15% to €268.2 million.

The institution registered a banking product of more than €12.9 million, which corresponds to an increase of 11.6% over the same period of 2021, influenced by the performance of the financial margin.

With information from Lusa

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