Standard Chartered Bank has announced Shs3.831 billion total assets growth and Shs 2.712 billion customer deposits growth in 2020.
According to the report, the bank registered Shs429.9 billion in total income, a decrease of 6.8 per cent and Shs72.8 billion in net profits before tax was, a decrease of 41.6 per cent.
The report indicates that customer usage of digital platforms grew significantly in 2020 with digital transactions and mobile wallet transfers registering growth of 34 per cent and 94 per cent respectively. The Bank’s clients continued accessing up to 70 common services via our SC mobile App with 64 per cent of these being processed straight through with no human intervention.
Wealth segment recorded 44 per cent income growth while assets under wealth management grew by 86 per cent to Shs297 billion. The bank also recorded growth in client base with new client numbers moving up six times.
Mr Albert Saltson the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered said the performance remained buoyant in the face of the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic and associated economic contraction.
“We made good progress on our strategic initiatives and our financial performance was overall very resilient. As we look to the future, I am fully confident that the foundations we have built will help us deliver our strategic priorities and further strengthen our client proposition and performance. In 2020, we continued to take significant steps to reshape our business and focused on supporting our employees, communities and clients leveraging our digital channels, having deep engagements with our affluent clients, tight risk management and cost control, improving our productivity and continued to leverage our global network to support our clients.” he said
The Chief Financial Officer Kelvin Musana said the 2020 financial performance is a reflection of our great resilience in the midst of the effects of the pandemic and related economic slowdown.
“With significant investments in technology, prudent cost and risk controls as well as robust systems, we remain optimistic, solid, and competitive and are on the right track. Although we still have some way to go in an environment that is still uncertain, we expect to come out of 2021 with better momentum.” He said
The Head, Corporate, Commercial and Institutional banking Godfrey Ssebaana said the bank’s Corporate and Institutional Banking business in 2020 continued to build capacity to serve the Global subsidiaries, institutional service providers as well offer banking and financing solutions to institutional and corporate clients’ employees.
“In 2020 we participated in financing key development programs to promote import substitution such as industrial hubs and parks and we provided sovereign solutions to finance key projects particularly for the infrastructure, water and energy sectors. We also recorded an increase in the adoption of our digital channels with close to 90 per cent of our clients shifting their transactions to our world class straight2Bank digital platform and our Corporate Finance proposition recorded growth as we successfully delivered a wide range of solutions to our clients along with several complex, event-based transactions.”
Regina Mukiri, Head, Corporate Affairs, Brand & Marketing noted that 2020 was a challenging year for everyone and they committed to go beyond banking to stand with their employees, clients and community to fight the devastating impact of #Covid 19.
“To ease the financial impact of the pandemic on our clients, we unveiled various initiatives like; Repayment holidays, fee waivers, loan extensions and promoted our digital channels especially the SC Mobile App for individual clients and the Straight2Bank platform for Corporates and SMEs to enable easy access and seamless transactions. During this period, our clients also accessed $1 billion availed globally to help finance production of goods and services to help in the fight against #Covid-19.”
