The Bank of Montserrat Records Healthy Profit in Spite of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The Bank of Montserrat realized a profit in spite of many challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was announced by Chairman of the Board of Directors Dalton Lee.

In his annual report to shareholders Mr. Lee stated that the Bank still realized a profit of $3.7 million for the year ended September 30, 2020.

However, this was a decline of 13.48% or 573 thousand dollars compared to $4.2 million in the previous year.

Mr. Lee said this was a commendable performance given the many challenges the bank faced faced, including weakened demand for loans, declining interest rates on investments, additional provisioning for loans and investments, a decline in fees and commissions collected, and added expenses related to the acquisition of the Royal Bank of Canada operations in Montserrat.

Meantime, the Bank’s non performing loan ratio, NPL continues to be one of the lowest in the currency union at 6.23% of total loans, which is marginally outside of the 5% guideline of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank ECCB.

Mr. Lee noted that this achievement is a direct result of the quality of the loans' underwriting and the focused attention placed on the management, oversight and recovery of the non-performing loan portfolio.

The Bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio also remains strong at 36.8%, well above the ECCB’s guideline of 8.0% and the anticipated updated guidelines under of 10%.

Mr. Lee does not expect the acquisition of the RBC operations will adversely affect the Bank’s CAR and become a cause of concern for regulators and its shareholders.