STANDARD Chartered Bank Zambia has reduced its base lending rates by two per cent, down to 19 per cent, a move the bank says is in response to the single-digit inflation rate which stands at 8.4 per cent.
Standard Chartered Bank Zambia managing director, Mizinga Melu, who announced the reduction yesterday, said the decision to reduce the rates was done to reciprocate the low inflation rate and to pass over the benefits to the customers.
Her bank wants to meet the customer needs and despite the cost of doing business in Zambia being high, reducing the lending rates would be good for Zambia’s local economy.
In reducing the rates, Mrs Melu said the bank expected a rise in business activities from both large and small-scale enterprises which she said was good for the local economy.
“We recognise that the coast of doing business in Zambia is high but in view of the single-digit inflation levels, we would like to reciprocate by reducing the base lending rates from 21 per cent to 19 per cent to have one of the lowest rates in the country. This just tells of a bank in a strong position,” she said.
The Bank of Zambia has been challenging commercial banks to ease lending regulations and also reduce on the base lending rates, especially that inflation has been reduced to a single digit rate.
And Standard Chartered Bank yesterday announced that they had posted a net profit of 340 per cent over the last one year to K69 billion.
Mrs Melu said apart from the net profit posting a huge increase, the bank’s balance sheet was showing positive figures of K3.5 trillion, which indicated a 39 percentage growth from last year to June 30 this year.
“We are Zambia’s most profitable bank and all banking indicators are showing positive figures. Our net profit has grown 340 per cent, our balance sheet has grown 39 per cent, the deposits have also grown 31 per cent to K2.721 trillion. We are standing in a very strong position,” she said.
She said the bank posted a growth of 27 per cent on the revenue which had raised the figure to 224 billion.
Mrs Melu said her bank performed well despite coming from the global financial turmoil and attributed this to the bank’s strategies being correct, before, during and in the aftermath of financial crisis.
And bank acting director, consumer affairs, Sonnie Zulu said the bank would continue to introduce customer-tailored products that would make it a leading bank.
And the bank handed over two motor vehicles to winners of its ‘Draw and win’ competition from which it raised K200 billion.
Medson Chisi and Enock Mundia were the two winners of the two new Toyota Hilux vehicles.
[Times of Zambia]
