CEO: Bank has seen signignificant growth

KINA Bank has seen significant growth across all divisions of its business last year, according to chief executive officer Greg Pawson.
“Our customer numbers grew by 25 per cent, our deposits grew by 29 per cent to K 1.3 billion, our loans and advances grew by 20 per cent to K851.7 million,” he said.
“We also put considerable effort into strengthening our USD correspondent banking arrangements. With a full year of uninterrupted foreign exchange, we restored our position in the foreign exchange market. Our foreign exchange income grew by 373 per cent and we were able to increase market share to 10 per cent for the full year.”
Pawson relayed the message in the bank’s annual report released on Tuesday.
He said strengthening the bank’s correspondent banking arrangements was one of three strategic milestones delivered last year.
“We also announced the acquisition of ANZ PNG’s Retail, SME and Commercial businesses and the resolution of our escrow shareholding,” he said.
The bank resolved its escrow shareholding when the founding and major shareholder, Fu Shan Investments (Hong Kong) Ltd, sold its entire stake of 34.94 per cent last June.
This resulted in a significant broadening of the investor base and provided greater market liquidity for Kina shares, bought by a diverse group of new and existing institutional and retail investors in PNG and Australia.
“The acquisition of ANZ’s Retail, SME and Commercial business is very much in line with our strategy to bank the emerging mass affluent segment in retail banking, and commercial and SME customers,” he said.
“It will strengthen PNG’s financial services sector by providing two very strong domestic retail banks.
“With the improvement in competition, customers will benefit from our appetite to grow and invest in them.”