Seychelles Commercial Bank announces record profit |10 June 2016

The Seychelles Commercial Bank has made a record net operating profit of R17.93m and net profit of R12.04m in the financial year ending December 31, 2015.

This represents a 45% increase over the operating profit of R12.35m and 37% increase over the net profit of SCR 8.8m reported in 2014.

The Board of directors has therefore recommended a dividend of R4.8m (compared to R4.2m paid in 2014).

The proposed dividend of R8.00 per share represents a return of 8% on the shareholders’ investment in the bank; a rate that is much higher than the current return on funds placed in bank deposit.

The government of Seychelles, currently the single largest shareholder in Seychelles Commercial Bank with 76.55% of shares, started the process in March of this year to sell off 16.55% of its shares to customers of the bank. The process will conclude on Friday July 15, 2016, by when the government’s ownership stake will stand at 60% of the paid up capital of R60m.

Seychelles Commercial Bank has embarked on many strategic initiatives since the last AGM and has many plans to improve its value proposition.

The bank has set itself with the ambitious goal of being one of the leading banks in Seychelles in the next 5-7 years. To achieve this it is making many strategic changes: from the way that it operates to the products and services that it offers, to not only be at par with other banks in the market but to be better than them.

Seychelles Commercial Bank began operations as a Post Office Savings Bank more than 100 years ago and was incorporated as the Seychelles Savings Bank in July 1992.

Until 1997, when its mandate changed to that of a commercial bank, thereby permitting it to also attend to business customers, it operated as a savings bank, serving the individual customer segment with an offering of savings accounts, personal loans and mortgages.

With the change in name to Seychelles Commercial Bank in 2012, its scope further widened and structure enhanced to serve business customers of all sizes; from micro enterprises to large corporate entities, through its Corporate & SME Department.

Currently, businesses may avail of current accounts and various types of credit facilities, such as overdrafts and term loans, including the government-led SME scheme, designed to meet their various financing needs.