First Citizens Bank chairman Anthony Smart has told shareholders the bank’s profit before tax of $790.8 million is the result of diversification from traditional interest income to a greater focus on fee based lines of business.
The bank’s financial highlights for the year ended September 30, which were posted on the T&T Stock Exchange yesterday, show a 2.4 per cent increase in profit before tax compared to 2014.
Profit after tax was $630.4 million, which was an increase of $3.8 million from 2014.
Smart said the bank’s total assets of $37.5 billion included $2.7 billion in cash, proceeds from the T&T NGL Limited initial public offering.
“Significant growth was shown in both our customer loans and investment portfoliots of 24 per cent and 17.7 per cent respectively,” he said.
These financial achievements were bolstered by First Citizens receiving the Bank of the Year T&T award from Banker Magazine.
Smart said First Citizens also continues to be one of the best rated indigenous banks in the English-speaking Caribbean and was recently rated Baa2 by Moody’s and BBB+ by Standard and Poor’s.