Stanbic profits jump to record Shs366b

Ms Anne Juuko says Stanbic remained resilient during 2022, contributing to recovery of the economy through extended lending to specilised groups such as Saccos and Stanbic for Her, among others. Photo / File  

What you need to know:

  • Profit levels grew by 33 percent, rising to Shs366b from Shs275b in 2021 due to diversification of revenue streams

Stanbic has reported a 33 percent growth in profit after tax resulting from diversification of its revenue streams.  

In details contained in the bank’s financial results, Stanbic indicated that its profits after tax had grown to Shs366b due to a deliberate move to diversify its revenue streams, arising from lending to various sectors of the economy. 

Stanbic, which remains Uganda’s biggest bank by assets has seen its profit margin grow, notwithstanding an unstable economic environment, characterised by high commodity prices, and inflation and Covid-19- related effects. 

For instance, the bank reported a profit of Shs275b in 2021, which was an increase from Shs243b posted in 2020.

During the period ended 2022, customer deposits grew by 6.8 percent to Shs6.1 trillion from Shs5.7 trillion while loans and advances rose to Shs4.1 trillion from Shs3.7 trillion. Assets grew by 3.9 percent to Shs9 trillion.

However, the bank wrote off Shs101.1b, which was an increase from Shs63.2b while operation costs increased by Shs13b (3 percent) to Shs495b largely due to inflation. 

Stanbic also reported that asset quality remained sound with the ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans reducing to 2.9 percent while provisioning for bad and doubtful debts reduced to Shs59.5b down from Shs70.4b.

While presenting the results in Kampala yesterday, Ms Anne Juuko, the Stanbic chief executive officer, said the bank had exhibited its purpose of driving Uganda’s growth in ways that directly and indirectly benefited millions of Ugandans and engineered the economic recovery of customers from the negative effects of Covid-19 in 2022 all through 2021

“As a result of the economic recovery, we saw a 9.8 percent growth in demand for new credit in 2022 with the volume of disbursed loans increasing to 77,819 [or] Shs4 trillion from 63,639 approved applications worth Shs3.7 trillion in 2021,” she said, noting that the bank also registered a 30 per cent increase in transaction volumes conducted through traditional bank accounts and FlexiPay. 

During the period, Stanbic reported that it had, through the Savings and Credit Cooperatives finance and capacity building programme, partnered with more than 6,100 Saccos, whose close to two million members involved in agriculture were able to access credit through “our multi-stakeholder Economic Enterprise Restart Fund to the tune of Shs40b at 10 percent interest per annum”. 

The bank also reported that through the Stanbic for Her programme launched in 2022 with support from the International Finance Corporation, supported more than 18,500 women, who received training in bookkeeping, tax reporting, and accounting, giving them the confidence to run their businesses.

“It gives us great pleasure to also report that over 11,000 small businesses have opened accounts with us in the past year, and that over 1,800 of them have already benefited from access to affordable credit at rates as low as 15.5 per cent, to the tune of over Shs30b,” Ms Juuko said.

Show of resilience

Mr Ronald Makata, the Stanbic acting (interim) chief officer, said during 2022, the bank had paid Shs272b in taxes, which was the biggest taxpayer in the banking sector. 

“We collected another Shs7.5 trillion on behalf of government by enabling taxpayers to remit through our expansive channels, representing 33 per cent of total remittances to government by the entire banking industry,” he said. 

In terms of sectoral lending, Stanbic said households (retail customers), accounted for the largest share of lending at Shs1.04 trillion followed by trade, which accounted for Shs663b. 

These were followed by real estate at Shs573b, while agriculture and transport and telecommunications, accounted for Shs437b and Shs417b, respectively.  

Mr Andrew Mashanda, the Stanbic Holdings chief executive officer, said the performance illustrated resilience, which grew shareholder value with a return on equity of 21.6 percent well above “our 20 percent target, and an improvement from 19.4 percent in 202”.

The growth was largely anchored around the Stanbic Bank, supported by other Stanbic Holdings subsidiaries, among which included Stanbic Properties, SBG Securities and the Stanbic Business Incubator. 

The performance will see shareholders received an improved payout of 370 percent, which translates to Shs235b (proposed dividends Shs185 billion and interim dividends paid Shs50b). 

Final dividend payment will be upon approval from the regulator.