Diamond Trust Bank Uganda has released its annual performance results for 2023 reporting a steady double-digit growth across all major metrics such as deposits, customer lending and income, as well as net profit and total assets.
The bank reported that in 2023, customer deposits grew by UGX331.1 billion or 17.7%, from UGX1876 billion, crossing the UGX2 trillion mark, to UGX2.207 trillion at the end of 2023.
With a sizeable deposit growth, DTB in the year increased its lending by 10.7% or UGX84.8 billion, from UGX791 billion to UGX876 billion.
Growth in lending largely contributed to a 24.2% growth in assets, from UGX2.017 trillion to UGX3.008 trillion.
“On the back of a robust growth in assets, the bank’s net interest income increased by 13% from UGX 123 billion to UGX 138 billion. Fee and commission income grew by 12% from UGX 24 billion to UGX 27 billion. The Bank’s operating income grew by 14% from UGX 158 billion to UGX 179 billion,” remarked Mr. Godfrey Sebaana, the DTB Uganda Managing Director/CEO in a commentary accompanying the results.
Godfrey also said the bank’s “impairment loss on loans and advances charged to the P & L during the year 2023 was lower by 44.6%, attributed to an improving quality of the loan book”.
“Consequently, the bank’s profit before tax stood at UGX 45 billion, an increase of 14% compared to the previous year,” Godfrey said.
In 2022 the bank registered UGX38.9 billion in profit before tax.
Net profit grew by 14.5% from UGX36 billion to UGX41 billion.
2023: a year of performance built on strong foundations
Commenting about the results Azim H. A. Kassam, the Chairman, Board Of Directors said that 2023 results, which are the first full year of executing the bank’s 2022-26 strategy depict a bank that is steadfast on “placing our customers front and centre of all our efforts and initiatives, and ensuring that the needs of our customers, both existing and potential, are satisfied and their expectations are met”.
“To achieve this and to keep ahead of our competition, we continued in 2023 to nurture a culture of rapid innovation and creativity, set within a broader organisational eco-system that is mindful and respectful of our obligations towards all our stakeholders and that places a premium on transparency, ethical and prudent behaviour, and strict compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations,” the Chairman said.
“We continued to invest heavily in world-leading technologies in order to enhance our product offering and better protect our core systems and assets, to develop and expand our partnerships with fintechs and tech-enabled companies, to enhance our client relationships through closer engagement and the expansion of our branch presence in selective, strategically important locations, and to build out and upskill our HR capacities and resources. All of this enabled us to continue our transition towards becoming an agile, tech-led yet people-driven, customer-centric bank with the underlying resilience to be able to withstand external shocks and to respond with speed and agility to risks and opportunities as they emerge,” added the Chairman,
“The success of these efforts is evident in the bank’s excellent 2023 results, which reflect a record performance across all of our key metrics,” he further explained.
Looking to 2024 and beyond – under new leadership
Mr. Kasaam said that to lead the continued delivery of the Bank’s short-term goals and longer-term strategic initiatives, the Board had hired a Mr Godfrey Sebaana, “a seasoned banker, already well-known and very highly respected in the Ugandan market” to replace Mr. Varghese Thambi as Chief Executive Officer.
Thambi, this month retired from the bank after 17 years of service.
“Godfrey is a seasoned banker, already well-known and very highly respected in the Ugandan market, who brings the benefit of experience gained during a multi-faceted career spanning over twenty years across a number of functions and senior leadership roles within Blue Chip organisations. He brings an impressive set of skills and perspectives to the Bank at a time when the Bank is very well-positioned to accelerate its growth trajectory and to take maximum advantage of emerging opportunities,” Kassam said.
Kassam further said that “in the few weeks that Godfrey has been with the Bank, the Board has been delighted to witness and hear of Godfrey’s very positive impact with clients, staff and the Bank’s wider stakeholders, and the response from the market to his recruitment has been unequivocally positive, supportive and optimistic”.
“The Board and the Bank’s staff as a whole very much look forward to working with Godfrey, and we all are both hopeful and confident in equal measure that Godfrey’s leadership will prove transformative to the Bank, allowing us to capitalize on the exciting opportunities ahead and to cement our position among the top tier of Uganda’s banks. Under Godfrey’s leadership, we will continue aggressively to deliver on our 2022-26 strategic objectives, at the core of which remains an ambitious customer acquisition and retention strategy. This will be achieved through continuing to expand our customer base across our chosen segments of retail, SMEs and corporates via both our branch network but also, increasingly, by making better and more extensive use of our digital channels, products and partnerships,” Kassam reiterated.
He thanked Mr. Varghese Thambi for being a dedicated and loyal leader for the past 17 years.
“With the support of his wife Thabitha, Thambi has worked tirelessly, with devotion and with the utmost integrity to grow the Bank from the one-branch organisation that it was when he first joined, to what it is today: one of Uganda’s most respected, successful and strategically important financial institutions with 37 branches, 680 staff, and a contributor of circa 20% to the DTB Group’s 2023 Total Assets and Pre-tax Profits, and of circa 24% to the Group’s 2023 total staff and branch numbers,” Kassam noted, adding: “Whilst the credit for this phenomenal growth is shared by the whole of DTBU’s senior management and staff, Thambi’s vision, leadership and tireless effort have been at the epi-centre of the huge progress made. Thambi leaves the Bank with the deepest gratitude, utmost respect, and very best wishes of myself and my colleagues on the Board, the Bank’s staff, shareholders, and the innumerable customers that Thambi and the Bank have supported over the years”.
Godfrey pledged to build on this strong foundation to “ensure that the bank remains an important contributor to the financial wellbeing of our customers by offering them unmatched customer experiences and innovative solutions, anchored on convenience, agility in response and ease of access”.
“We will continue to invest in our people, systems and processes to improve our internal efficiencies. We will also leverage our strong partnerships to devise innovative products for our customers with the aim of offering sustainable value creation for the benefit of all our stakeholders,” he pledged.
