Stanbic to pay Shs100b in dividends after BoU lifts suspension
Stanbic Bank has said it has been authorised by Bank of Uganda to pay Shs100b declared as dividends.
In a post annual general meeting notice shared yesterday, Stanbic said the AGM had authorised the board to take necessary steps to effect payment of Shs100b in final and interim dividends 2021 and 2022.
The payment, the bank said, would be split into two portions with at least Shs50b going to payment of final dividends for 2021 while Shs50b would pay interim dividends for 2022.
The shareholders were informed that the bank [subsidiary] received approval from Bank of Uganda on June 1 to pay dividends to a total of Shs100b … On the basis of the said regulatory approval and authorisation by the board, the company will undertake all necessary steps required to declare and effect all payment of dividend in line with the USE listing rules 2021,” the notice said.
However, the notice was silent on the Shs110b that Stanbic had declared as dividend payment for the period ended December 2020. In notes published together with its 2021 financial results, Stanbic had indicated it was still consulting the Central Bank to guide on how it would proceed on the already declared dividends but not paid and that of December 2021.
This had come after Mr Hannington Wasswa, the Bank of Uganda director commercial banking, had in March said that the Central Bank was still instituting requirements that had asked commercial banks to continue suspending discretionary payments to retain capital for different risks that had continued to be experienced.
Some of the risks, he said, included liquidity, market, and operational, consistency risks, which had threatened capital stocks at a time when the economy was still facing headwinds.
However, the Central Bank last week announced the suspension on dividend payments had been lifted after liquidity measure under which it had been instituted expired on May 31.
Bank of Uganda had in June 2020 directed all supervised financial institutions to suspend all discretionary payments due to the need to keep capital for the real economy.
