Papua New Guinea’s Kina Bank recorded a net profit of K106.1 million (US$30.1 million) last year — an increase of 11 percent compared to the previous corresponding period.
Managing director and chief executive officer Greg Pawson said that lending also increased by 11 percent during the year.
“The result reflects our continued commitment to nation building in PNG,” he said.
“We provide banking and financial services to more than 700,000 Papua New Guineans. We lent over K300million (US$85 million) in 2022, helping Papua New Guineans to open bank accounts, build new homes, start new businesses and grow their prosperity.”
Pawson said more than 30,000 new customers joined Kina Bank last year.
“The board declared an unfranked final dividend for second half of 2022 of 16.1 toea per share and 26.4 toea per share for the full year,” he said.
“The full-year result demonstrates that our core business in PNG is growing and meeting our aspiration of market share to about 25 percent.
“And we continue to be a strong competitive and challenging brand in a market that continues to be dominated by one bank.”
Pawson welcomed how the bank “executed against our five-year strategic plan”.
“We are now half-way through, and our steady and sustainable growth in a diverse range of products and services had delivered for our customers, people, shareholders and communities here in our home and only market — PNG. We’ve delivered a strong customer growth,” he said
.“Commercial customers growing 19 per cent and retail customers up 15 per cent through an increase in savings accounts.
“On the lending side, the commercial sector was increased by 9.6 per cent, SME lending was pleasingly up by 25 percent and home lending was up 19 percent. “We have a SME loan of four per cent with the extended loan terms,” he said .