Mathias Katamba, CEO dfcu Bank sharing financial hightlights The performance of dfcu bank in 2021 has attracted mixed feelings.
The board said dfcu demonstrated resilience in 2021 showing continued improvement in most of the top line figures driven by strong income growth and cost control.
Operating income grew by 21% year on year while cost to income ratio improved to 50%, an indication that the Company is beginning to reap benefits due to efficiencies derived from its investment in technology and cost optimisation. However, the bank booked large loan impairments during the year resulting from the adverse effects of the pandemic related disruptions on many of our business customers.
This, officials say, consequently had a significant impact on the earnings for the period.
“While the economy was fully reopened in January 2022, we are cautious that some of our business customers may have a long recovery lag. The Company will continue offering tailored interventions to selected sectors and business recovery loans to SME’s who form the core of our business customers,” said the board.
Following the release of the 2021 financial results, we held a one – on – one interview with Mathias Katamba, the Chief Executive Officer of dfcu Bank, the main trading subsidiary of dfcu Limited.
What are the highlights of the Bank’s performance?
We delivered strong topline growth with a 21% increase in operating income driven by a 17% increase in net interest income and a 35% increase in non-interest income.
We also achieved a 26% reduction in interest expense, and improved operational efficiency demonstrated by a significant improvement in the cost to income ratio from 63% to 49%.
What drove the significant topline growth?
As part of our retail strategy, we introduced new solutions in the various customer segments focusing on small businesses and supporting financial inclusion. In doing so we further reduced the composition of fixed deposits on our balance sheet.In our quest to deepen the support for key business sectors, we widened our offerings in the global financial markets and trade finance space hence increasing our outreach and trading volumes.Our deliberate focus on improving the customer journey saw us increase investment in digital channels including expansion of the intelligent ATM fleet, new functionalities on both agent and online banking, and on boarding new partners supporting payments. These initiatives translated into increased utilization of our digital channels. How have you managed to consistently reduce operating costs in a challenging […]
