Bank records first quarter profit of K203 million

The National Business

By DALE LUMA
BANK South Pacific Financial Group Ltd has announced a net profit of K203 million in the first quarter of 2021.
This is a 2.6 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2020 due largely to the reduction in net insurance income and increase in computing costs, according to the bank.
Other highlights included:

  • NET assets of K3.6 billion;
  • COST to income ratio of 40.3 per cent;
  • CAPITAL adequacy ratio of 25 per cent;
  • PROVISION coverage ratio of 5.7 per cent;
  • EARNINGS per share of 43 toea; and,
  • MARKET capitalisation of K5.6 billion.

Group chairman Sir Kostas Constantinou said the last 12 months had been difficult “but we have done well with the profits that we achieved”.
“We have an excellent staff, everybody’s committed,” he said.
“It is unfortunate with the Covid-19, but we progress forward now with the inoculation of our staff who are behind it.
“The intention is to do most of the branches. We have had problems through the Pacific, places like Samoa, Tonga which have been restricted because of tourism.
“The Cook Islands have opened up so we are yet to see what happens.
Sir Kostas remained optimistic.
“Good times are coming for Papua New Guinea with the recent announcements on the progress of some of the country’s resource projects,” he said.
“We are fortunate that we have the Papua LNG project that has been successfully completed and is proceeding with Total who’s
the lead partner doing the upstream and Exxon doing the downstream.
“These projects are K48 billion and right on our door step and there’s not a lot of countries in the world that have these types of projects.”
Sir Kostas said the news on P’Nyang was also welcomed.