BK Group Plc reported an after tax profit of Rwf15.6 billion in the first quarter of 2022, a 40 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The growth also reflects a 3 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter reported last year.

The outlook is contained in the group’s financial statement announced Tuesday, May 31, by the Chief Executive Dr Diane Karusisi accompanied by the bank’s Chief Finance Officer Nathalie Mpaka.

The group registered notable performance across all its business lines and its four subsidiaries, Bank of Kigali, BK General Insurance, BK TecHouse and BK Capital, according to the statement.

However, the main driver of growth, Karusisi said, was the significant reduction of the cost of risk to 0.7 percent down from 3.4 percent last year.

"...And that means the asset quality has improved. We have seen a lot of upgrades from watch class to normal class and this has helped us to reduce our impairment charge,” she said.

Watch class clients are those in arrears who fail to make payments on their loans within at least 30 days while normal class are those that pay regularly. 

The target is to stabilize the cost of risk around 2 percent given that the group has a couple of facilities still in non-performing loans.

Profit before tax grew by 44 percent, total assets also increased by 22.4 percent while deposits grew by 21.7 percent, all compared to the same period last year.

Customers at Bank of Kigali head office. BK Group Plc reported an after tax profit of Rwf15.6 billion in the first quarter of 2022, a 40 percent increase compared to the same period last year. / File

While breaking down the numbers, CFO Mpaka said the group reported net loans and advances of Rwf987.4 billion, an increase of 9.99 percent compared to the same period last year.

BK Group also reported a 10.8 percent growth in shareholders’ equity compared to the same period last year.

Karusisi expressed confidence that this reflects recovery in the economy, especially looking at the current government spending for the preparation of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) slated for June 20 in Kigali.

"We believe this year CHOGM is a really big driver of performance in the first quarter but also very optimistic for the rest of the year,” she said, noting that it is despite a very difficult macro environment.

"We have seen inflation accelerating to 10 percent, and this is the first time we see high inflation numbers in the past five years. We are now mulling ways to align our business in this inflationary environment,” she added.

According to Mpaka, the Group also registered a 49.7 percent increase in operation costs mainly driven by human resource activities in the second quarter last year and increase in partnerships such as the recent naming rights deal with the former Kigali Arena, now BK Arena.

"We still maintain very strong liquidity, with liquid assets at around 38 percent of total assets, and when you compare our gross loan to total deposit we have reduced this to 87 percent from 94 percent last year end,” Mpaka said.

Despite a difficult macro-economic environment characterized by high inflationary pressures, Karusisi is optimistic that BK Group will meet its target for the year 2022.

"Our teams remain committed to delivering on our customers’ promise and this quarter’s performance gives us great confidence and optimism that we will meet shareholder’s expectations.” Karusisi reiterated.

In 2021, BK Group Plc recorded an after-tax profit of Rwf51.9 billion, a 35 per cent growth compared to the previous year when it registered Rwf38.4 billion.