NATIONAL Superannuation Fund (Nasfund) chief executive officer Rajeev Sharma says BSP Financial Group Ltd (BSP) remains the largest and most profitable bank.
Nasfund is one of BSP’s major shareholders and Mr Sharma said, while commenting on the banks quarter three (Q3) results, that BSP will continue to deliver strong returns for the fund’s membership.
The bank declared a Q3 profit of K187.3 million, a 32 per cent reduction from the same period in 2022.
“While Nasfund would have preferred BSP to deliver positive Q3 profit growth, you have to put the result into perspective,” Mr Sharma said.
“BSP remains the largest and most profitable bank in the South Pacific, has generated, and will continue to generate strong returns for our members.”
Mr Sharma further highlighted that there were a number of mitigating factors impacting BSP’s profit performance:
These two factors combined were the primary reason for the relatively large increase in impairments.
It should be noted that BSP will recover and write back a percentage of the impaired unsecured personal loans and the large corporate impairment relates to a government guaranteed exposure that will result in full recovery in the future.
“Finally, the underlying performance of BSP appears strong, with Q3-23 revenue growth that was up 11.7 per cent.
“The latter indicates both existing and new customers are buying more banking services from BSP, a very positive sign for investors such as Nasfund,” Mr Sharma said.