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18 June, 2007
In a period of nine months of the current fiscal year, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) grossed profits nearly the amount it made last year, sources told The Reporter.
The bank’s nine-month profits topped one billion birr, an amount slightly shying from the 1.1 billion birr the bank secured a year earlier in gross profits, according to the sources.
In comparison to the same period – initial nine months - of the previous year, CBE’s profits during this year’s first nine months mark an increment of 33 percent, which amounts to 250 million birr.
Within the nine months of this fiscal year the bank managed to secure 78 percent of its target profits, while it “expects to easily” meet the balance of its 1.4 billion birr profit forecast of this year during the last quarter, the same sources said.
The bank made the chunk of its profits from its international banking operations, which constitute about 50 percent of the reported sum.
CBE has also trimmed its non-performing loans (NPL) to 18 per cent as of the end of the third quarter of this fiscal year, down from 27 per cent a year earlier to the stated quarter.
The bank’s NPL summed up over 2.7 billion birr on the third quarter of the past year. That amount went down to 1.8 billion birr on the third quarter this fiscal year.
The bank has planned to further slash its NPL down to 15 per cent by the end of June, the sources said.
A few years ago, CBE’s NPL was over 30 per cent, way above the 10 per cent mark for a bank’s loan portfolio to be considered healthy by international standards.
As the third quarter of the fiscal year winds up, CBE’s deposits rate has also shown a record high of 33 billion birr, up by about five billion birr from their level a year earlier.
The bank’s outstanding loans, however, exhibited insignificant change, with a reduction of about 130 million birr from their level of 9.8 billion birr a year before the third quarter.
The state-owned Ethiopian banking giant is currently operating 189 branches across the nation.
By Hayal Alemayehu - Ethiopian Reporter