Board Chairman announces National Bank of Dominica (NBD) reported a net loss of $4.4-million for 2015

Chairman of the Board Anthony John announced during his presentation of The National Bank of Dominica (NBD) Annual Report, that the bank made a net loss of $4.4-million for the year 2015. John said the year was affected by slow growth, low-interest rates and a decline in asset quality. He said however, that despite the challenging environment, NBD registered a positive return of $8.97-million before provision for impairment and losses on its externally managed funds.
 
John said while the aggregate performance on Loans and Advances of other banks showed a decline, the NBD ended the year with growth of 3.68%. John noted that NBD’s Market share for Loans and Advances increased by 1.64% to 57.67%, which he interpreted as an indication that its loan strategies are effective.
 
John also stated that “Notwithstanding NBD’s successes, the year under review was also marred by slow growth, low-interest rates and a decline in asset quality. Further, the bank’s profitability was adversely impacted by an overall negative return on our externally managed investment portfolio, which wiped out its profit on operations and resulted in the Bank reporting a net loss for the year of $4.4 Million”.
 
However, he said, the bank is not daunted. “We continue to put strategies in place to improve profitability,” he noted. He indicated that the company will continue to make “meeting the changing needs of its customers a priority”, and will invest in the required technologies, “to bring state-of-the-art products for our customers’ financial prosperity and service convenience.”
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“In the face of mobile banking and card revolution, we will work to further strengthen our cyber security to protect our customers from fraud exposures,” John noted. He mentioned also that helping to stimulate growth in the business sector will remain a priority.
 
“Our efforts in this direction began with a massive outreach to small and medium-sized businesses and budding entrepreneurs, island-wide. Following this, we are building partnership and introducing programmes to assist the small and medium business sectors to access funding to start, manage, or expand their businesses,” he noted.
 
“The Asset and Liability Committee of the Board will provide strong oversight and support to the Executive team, and the risk group will work closely with treasury and the other business units to robustly monitor and mitigate risk,” he explained.
 
With regard to the bank’s externally managed investment portfolio, he stated, “We anticipate some volatility, and we are putting measures in place to mitigate against such market risks.” According to John, the bank has reassessed its fund managers, and is making necessary changes.