Malawi's biggest bank achieves good results

The bank has reported a pre-tax profit of K3.5bn for 2007 – a jump from a pre-tax profit of K2.8bn in 2006.

The bank's profit after tax has reached K1.17bn compared to K933m in 2006.

Good fortune has also smiled on the bank's shareholders who have pocketed K3.48 per share in the year; that's gone by up from K1.75 in 2006, a jump of 99%.

Extracts of the results audited by Deloitte published on April 1 2008 said the bank registered the 25% profit envelope despite the pressure on margins from bank rates cut in the year under review.

Malawi's central bank twice cut the rate at which commercial banks borrow money from it from 20% to 17.5% before settling at 15%.

The bank, arguably Malawi's biggest and whose major competitor is Standard Bank Malawi, says despite the pressure as a result of the reduced gains from loans and advances to customers amounting to K18.4bn, it registered huge business volumes especially from its treasury and non-interest operations that raked in about 21% of income.

The bank doubled its investments in treasury bills from K3.7bn in 2006 to K9.9bn last year according to its balance sheet.

The bank however, decried what it called ‘unfair competition on the market that has not yet been resolved by the central bank'. Nonetheless, it says it managed to register a 37% increase of deposits from customers from about K25bn in 2006 to K34bn in 2007.

The Reserve Bank of Malawi is said to be letting down the commercial banks by forcing them to keep money at the central bank without earning interest and yet the same rule does not apply to other institutions like discount houses that also get deposits from customers.

The report says the profit posted has prompted the bank's board of directors to pay a final dividend of K350m representing 77 tambala per share, payable on June 6 this year.

The National Bank of Malawi has about 455 million shares in issue on the stock market and a market capitalisation estimated at K27bn.

The price of the bank's shares has more than doubled from K30 in December 2006 to K60 by December last year.

The bank's CEO, George Partridge, and Chairman Professor Mathews Chikaonda bemoaned the overvaluing of the kwacha in the year under review; a development they said led to some shortages of foreign currency on the market.

They hope, however, for an even a better year as the economy of Malawi is expected to grow by 7.1% with a moderate inflation, they hope the overall business environment will make them thrive again.

They still called on the Reserve Bank of Malawi to level the playing field.