GBTI records 25% drop in profit
The Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) has registered an after-tax profit of $1.52 billion for 2017, sharply down from the $2.043 billion profit in 2016.
According to its financial statements published in Friday’s Stabroek News, after-tax profit slid by 25.57% and the bank also saw declines in interest income and loans and advances.
Interest income for the bank was down from $5.994 billion in 2016 to $5,044 billion last year. Interest expense declined substantially from $912 million in 2016 to $789 million in 2017. Even so, its net interest income was significantly down from $5.082 billion in 2016 to $4.254 billion in 2017. There was a substantial increase in other income from $1.133 billion in 2016 to 1.626 billion in 2017.
Operating expenses also rose substantially from $2.798 billion in 2016 to $3.412 billion in 2017. Provisioning for bad loans has decreased significantly from $899 million in 2016 to $587 million.
Loans and advances from the bank declined from $45.5 billion in 2016 to $44.7 billion in 2017. Deposits were down from $82.8 billion in 2016 to $81.6 billion last year. Taxation declined from $475 million in 2016 to $360 million in 2017.
Dividends paid by the company declined from $680 million in 2016 to $600 million last year.
Basic earnings per share in dollars dropped from $51.09 in 2016 to $38.02 in 2017.
The bank’s consolidated statement says that the loss attributed to an unnamed associate company rose from $143 million in 2016 to $620 million in 2017.
Just over a year ago, in March, 2017, GBTI was hit by what was alleged to be a $941 million fraud committed by gold dealer Siddiqi Rasul.