Performance Overview

2017 has been a remarkable year with transformative results of pre-tax profits of Le79.5 billion which is equivalent to USD $10.5 million as at end December 2017. This represents a growth of 122% from 2016. We achieved such historic profits and sustained our local market dominance in spite of the fierce competition and low economic outturn in a pre-election year.

Our relentless effort to sustain market leadership has earned us ‘Best financial institution of the year 2017’ by AWOL (All Works of Life). The results for 2017 together with the AWOL award are testimonials of our leading domestic brand, unique customer engagement model and deep market understanding as the People’s Bank.

The Bank achieved industry leadership in the following:

• Customer deposit of Le1.1 Trillion; the first bank to hit one Trillion in deposits
• Recorded the highest profits in the industry i.e. 79.5 Billion
• Balance sheet size of Le1.25 Trillion; the first and highest in the industry

We recorded ROA of 5.9% that exceeded our target of 3%. This sterling business performance is underpinned by the aggressive focus on cost-volume leadership and differentiation. We remain on track in aligning business performance with key strategic priorities to reposition the Bank as the dominant brand.

Prioritisation of organic capital growth and strong liquidity performance reinforce our disciplined approach to regain shareholder’s confidence. This is evident in marked improvement in the Bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio of 31.7% against the statutory minimum of 15%.

Over the period, we embarked on an accelerated investment in digital transformation and deployed state-of-the art technologies and communications infrastructure to deliver our digital enterprise programme which started in 2016.

Consequently, the result for the year was the combination of our growing brand identity, a well-diversified customer deposit base, adoption of a conservative credit risk posture and the scale of premium service delivery from the new ICT infrastructure.

We are building the infrastructure for sustainable growth and now poised to increase shareholders’ value year on year.

Strategic focus and Outlook

We achieved our goal of becoming the leading Bank in Sierra Leone. We are striving for excellence and have set ambitious targets to transition into a fully digitised Bank by 2020. Evolution into a digital enterprise is not contingent but rather deliberate as funds have been ring-fenced from internally generated resources to support this transformational journey.

During the course of the year, the Bank pursued key strategic priorities in its quest to drive excellence and deliver superior financial performance. With a strong focus on embedding and nurturing a customer centric culture, we invested in digital technologies to excite our clients with enhanced customer experience across multiple touchpoints.

Our engagement model is shaped by opportunities that promote financial literacy and financial inclusion. With a banking population ratio of 1:8, we see scale in reaching the unbanked through digital banking. We continue to invest in digital and mobile banking solutions with significant curtailment in brick and mortar branches. We will pursue our annual target 250k for new customers diligently based on the following revised strategic priorities:

• Go Digital: transitioning the Bank into a digital bank by deploying capabilities to work at home and anywhere, pursue paperless environment and pushing transaction origination at the fingers of the customer.
• Reinforced customer centricity: intensifying client care and digital experience, growing contactless banking for retail customers and rolling out branchless banking to service the unbanked and mass market.
• Leveraging technology for growth and uniqueness: supporting 24/7 banking capabilities and maintaining a resilient, robust and secure ICT infrastructure.

We owe our employees a debt of gratitude for their devoted and committed contribution whose efforts undoubtedly delivered this extraordinary outcome. We thank them immensely for this inspired performance and look forward to sustained commitment in the coming years.

We want to seize this opportunity to thank our loyal customers for their continued custom and assure them of our commitment to premium service.

Management extends sincerest thanks and appreciation to the Bank of Sierra Leone, National Commission for Privatisation and Board of Directors for providing strategic oversight.

BY ORDER OF MANAGEMENT

19TH JULY 2018