By Tatenda Mujeyi
FBC Bank has reported a ZWL$54.3 Million profit and 2.232 ZWL$ cents dividend per share in its 2019 second quarter results presented in Harare this week amid reflections on the economic challenges.
The positive performance as justified by the 54.3 Million profit was attributed to the group’s diversification strategy.
“The favourable performance continues to be underpinned by the Group’s diversified model. The Group benefited from its effective hedging strategy by recording notable exchange gains following the introduction of the Zimbabwe dollar,” the Chairperson of the FBC Board Herbert Nkala said.
The company also realised a positive reduction on its income performance subsequent to the improved performance they realised in the first half of the year.
“However, due to the strong income performance reported in the period under review, cost to income performance improved to 55% compared to 71% recorded in the comparable period in 2018,” the Chairperson said.
The group attributed the increase in cost of doing business to the country’s economic challenges as a major impediment.
“The operating environment remains challenging throughout the first half of 2019. During the period under review, inflationary pressure remained a cause of concern, and its effect has been felt across the economy as evidenced by the general increase in the cost of doing business,” Mr. Nkala said.
The company in turn declared a dividend on its first half profit to all shareholders at a rate of 2.232 ZWL$ cents per share.
“On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am pleased to advise stakeholders that an interim dividend of 2.232 ZWL$ cents per share was proposed for the half year ended June 30 2019 after taking into account the performance of the group,” Mr. Nkala said.
The company emphasised its commitment to the advancement of IT as justified by their increase of POS systems and secure chips.
“Financial technologies continue to revolve and revolutionaries access options available on the transactional environment It is one of our core objectives to promote a transition towards a cashless society. It is in this regard, we have increased POS deployment in the market and officially launched more secure chip and pin ATM cards in a bid to improve security,” the Chairman added.
The FBC Group is one of the most innovative banking sector corporates with operations in the Financial sector, Insurance sector and property markets.
