Kina Bank announces K96.2 million net profit

KINA Bank has delivered an after tax net profit of K96.2 million, representing 27 per cent growth for last year, chief executive officer Greg Pawson says.
Pawson along with chief financial officer Chetan Chopra said in Port Moresby yesterday that Kina was proud to be the second largest bank in PNG by footings (which is deposits and loans).
“Our underlying net profit after tax was up 27 per cent on the prior year,” Pawson said.
“We are excited about becoming the second largest bank in PNG by footings.
“Our combined footings broke through K5 billion at end of 2021.
“Contributing to this was strong growth in our loan portfolio with new lending of over K550 million and 26 per cent growth year-on-year (YOY) in the SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) and commercial sectors of the market.
“We also saw strong growth of over 40 per cent in the corporate sector on-boarding several signature new customers to Kina, again reinforcing our position as a strong and well capitalised full service commercial bank.”
He said customer growth was pleasing with more than 25,000 new to Kina customers in 2021 and this reflected some refinements to their on-boarding processes.
“As a result we achieved 18 per cent growth in deposits to over K3 billion and 28 per cent growth in transactional deposits,” he said.
“Our ongoing investment in new digital technologies paid dividends with a 26 per cent growth in digital channel with revenues up 65 per cent year-on-year.
“Our total customer numbers now exceed 185,000 and combine this with our strategic partnership with MiBank we now reach over 625,000 Papua New Guineans.”
Pawson added that foreign exchange earnings were also up 19 per cent on the previous year as the bank continued to strengthen its correspondent banking arrangements offshore with support from one of its largest shareholders the Asian Development Bank.
“Our legacy and affiliated funds administration and investment management businesses also performed well delivering revenues of over K40 million,” he said.
“We intend to expand these key areas of differentiation over 2022 with the launch of e-KYC (Know Your Customers) which will allow new customers to Kina to on-board themselves and a number of new to market retail investment opportunities through a new look customer segment Kina Private Bank.”