“The bank recorded an exponential growth mainly due to its generic and selective partnerships in selected areas. The two fold approach enabled the bank to differentiate and customer segmentation where it has become a sales and service driven organization at present,” NTB Deputy Chief Executive Officer Renuka Fernando said.
The bank’s operations are centralized while the back end operations support the entire system where it has achieved success in its generic growth. The NTB engages in specialized areas of credit cards, leasing and margin trading which add equally to its bottom line, she said at the second Investor Forum held in Colombo on Wednesday.
The Bank expects to drive the future growth by diversification of portfolio through customer segments, geography and catering to full value chain while having plans for continuous branch expansion, focus on long term savings products, transactional business accounts and remittances. It will focus on exploiting cross selling and SMEs with advisory and customer education, setting up regional SME centres to provide integrated solutions.
It will look for alternative funding sources, continuous cost management and productivity improvement, continuous revitalization of the sales service culture and act with responsibility to the community in mind.
The Bank closed the first half with a post tax profit of Rs 893 million surpassing the comparative period of last year by 21 percent. Core-earnings posted good growth over 2011 with revenue increasing at a higher rate of 13 percent compared to an expense growth of 11 percent. The performance was primarily driven by four strategic business units comprising of retail and SME, credit cards, corporate banking and treasury which recorded both volume growth and profit growth for the period. Leasing also performed well despite industry wide challenges arising from the changes in the import tax structure for vehicles. The bank continuous to progress well in diversifying its portfolio and earnings base while optimizing returns in a controlled growth environment.
The NTB received recognition and accolades during the six months under review. It was the proud recipient of the award for the Best Private Bank in Sri Lanka, presented by World Finance. NTB annual report for 2011 won the Silver Award in the Banks (Asia Pacific) category for the third consecutive year at the US based LACP Vision Awards.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2012/08/20/bus02.asp