Bank South Pacific reports K806mil net profit despite Covid-19

The National Business

BANK South Pacific (BSP) Group chief executive officer Robin Fleming says the bank expects its financial results for this year to be no less than last year.
Fleming said this after announcing the bank’s 2020 full year financial results yesterday while acknowledging that the year had started off well for the bank.
The bank made a net profit of K806.2 million for the year ending Dec 31, 2020, a 9.5 per cent reduction compared to 2019’s figure of K890 million and the reduction was attributed in large part to the direct impacts of the Covid-19.
Other highlights for 2020 include:

  • TOTAL assets up by 12.3 per cent and loans up 3.0 per cent;
  • COST to income stable at 37.4 per cent, 37.7 per cent in 2019;
  • CAPITAL adequacy steady at 23.3 per cent, still well above Bank of PNG requirement of 12 per cent;
  • LOAN provisions increased to 5.9 per cent;
  • DIVIDEND yield at 11.17 per cent based on share price at K12; and,
  • INCREASED profit contributions.

Fleming said the bank had an overall sound performance in 2020 which was something were proud of achieving, given the challenges arising from the Covid-19.
“For 2021, we’ve certainly planned on archiving a result which is no less than 2020,” he said.
“And the year has started off well and from an investor perspective always caveat by saying that if there had been any material change in our profitability, we would be compelled under the continuous disclosure (requirement) to announce to the market. Therefore absent of any continuous disclosure announcement, we can say that this year this year has started off as we would have expected according to plan.
“There has been no event that gives BSP indication to signal to the market that there’s been a change in our operating performance which would require to make a disclosure to our investors.”