Reuters
Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP), one of Morocco’s three biggest banks, said on Wednesday its half-year net profit rose by 12.7 percent to 1.1 billion dirhams ($128.01 million) on the back of a big increase in retail and investment banking income.
The bank also reported a 13 percent increase in bad debts in the first half, partly due to a slowdown in its home market but also due to activities in sub-Saharan countries.
Like other Moroccan banks, Banque Populaire has been expanding south into fast-growing sub-Saharan economies. In 2012, it bought 50 percent of Banque Atlantique, active in Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
Net banking income jumped 15 pct to 7.5 billion dirhams, thanks to investment and retail banking. Sub-Saharan subsidiary Groupe Banque Atlantique had an increase in deposits and loans of 37 percent and 61 percent respectively.
Total deposits increased 5.4 percent to 221.4 billion dirhams which represented a 26.7 percent market share, including 77.8 billion dirhams of remittances collected from Moroccans living abroad, the bank said.
Loans to individuals rose 4.1 pct to 55.6 billion dirhams, while corporate credits rose by 3.6 pct to 41.3 billion dirhams.
Bad debts rose to 13.5 billion dirhams up from 11.86 billion in the first half of 2013. The bank said it added 315 million dirhams of provisions to raise total provisions to 2.1 billion dirhams.
One analyst, who declined to be named said: “Bad loans rose by the same rate as in the whole sector.”
The bank’s shares opened up 2.05 pct at 199 dirhams on the Casablanca stock exchange after the results.
(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman)
