A 17% increase 

Scotia Group Jamaica led by President and CEO Audrey Tugwell-Henry put in a good performance for financial year 2024 which saw all its business lines doing well.

Total revenues for the year ended October 31st, 2024 grew by J$7.8 billion to J$63.3 billion, an increase of 14 per cent over financial year 2023.

This generated a net income of $20.2 billion, an increase of $3 billion or 17 per cent compared with the prior year.

For the three months ended October 31st, 2024, Scotia Group Jamaica reported a profit of US$6.2 billion, an increase of $703.4 million on the previous year.

Scotia Group Jamaica now has 750,000  depositors and this year saw deposits increase by $31.2 billion to $476 billion.

The Group’s asset base grew by $40.3 billion to $705 billion as at October 2024. This was due in the main to a notable rise in the Group’s loan book to  $43.9 billion, a 16.3 per cent increase on the previous year. Investment securities contributed here with $25.7 billion spelling a 16.2 per cent jump.

Two years ago, Scotia Jamaica’s mortgages grew by 14 per cent, this year that’s up to 26 per cent.

Consumer loans are up by 13 per cent, commercial loans by 11 per cent and credit cards by 12 per cent.

Non-accrual loans (NALs) as at October 2024 totalled $5 billion compared to $4.5 billion as at October 2023.

Scotia’s commercial banking arm did well for the year under review with its commercial loan book  up by 11 per cent on the previous year. The Group now proudly proclaims it has the best commercial solutions in Jamaica-bar none! 

Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance which is headed by Debra Lopez-Spence weighed in with a stellar performance which saw insurance premiums grow over 5 per cent this year with policy sales increasing by 20 per cent year over year. 

Scotia Insurance saw a leap in its net insurance business revenue which climbed by 40 per cent year over year. This was attributable to among other things higher Contractual Service Margin (CSM)  and premium revenue from credit life.

Scotia Protect, the general insurance business put in a star performance. This unit is headed by Gary-Vaughn White and began operations just two years ago. Here total revenue jumped by 230 per cent year over year with Gross Written Premiums up 143 per cent year over year.

Scotia Investments led by Sabrina Cooper has had to navigate turbulent waters with the high interest rate regime which is now subsiding. Investors have been taking a wait-and-see approach. Nevertheless, Scotia Investments saw its Assets Under Management (AUM) increase by 14.4 per cent with its asset management portfolios contributing $27.1 billion.

Like many of the leading finance houses in Jamaica, Scotia Group saw an uptick in its operating expenses which totalled $29.4 billion as at October 2024, up by $1.8 billion. The dreaded Asset Tax played a part here as well as costs associated with digitising operations.

Shareholders’ equity came to $138. 5 billion an increase of $11.9 billion or 9.4 per cent when compared to October 2023.

The Board of Directors has approved a dividend of 45 cents per stock unit for the fourth quarter.

Speaking at an investor briefing yesterday, Scotia Group Jamaica’s President and CEO Audrey Tugwell-Henry said: “ This is the best result in the history of the organisation and we are particularly pleased because this is our 135 anniversary. We are the top-performing financial services Group in Jamaica.

Our net income performance was built on the careful execution of our strategy. We have a 5-year global strategic plan and 2024 represents Year One of that 5-Year plan.

“There was growth across all business lines including our new business Scotia Insurance Agency that recorded significant net income year-over-year.

“We have been measuring how our customers view their experience for years and this year the average has been the highest. We also measured our employee engagement and this year it was  also the highest. So on all the strategic pillars, we have delivered.”

The Scotia Jamaica boss went on to add that the Group is well capitalised with all entities significantly exceeding capital adequacy ratios set by the regulator. It also has sufficient liquidity to meet the needs of the clients.

Its delinquency ratios are in fact better than pre-COVID so Scotia Jamaica is managing risk well. 

“We are happy that clients are overwhelmingly choosing to do business with us. Jamaica is a key part of our Caribbean strategy,” she added.

Last month it was announced that VP for Retail & Small Business, Perrin Gayle has been appointed Acting Head of Retail Banking, Caribbean and Central America.

CEO of Scotia Investments, Sabrina Cooper moves up to Regional Director, Brokerage, Caribbean and Central America. Debra Lopez-Spence who held the position of President of Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance Company has been appointed Regional Head of Insurance, North& Central Region.

These three senior executives have done well with their respective portfolios under the stewardship of Tugwell-Henry. They have delivered.

Any football manager will tell you, it does put a smile on your face to have three strikers you can count on-just ask Jurgen Klopp.

With these promotions and Scotia doing well can Tugwell-Henry still count on these executives to make Jamaica the jewel in the Caribbean crown despite them deservedly moving upward and onwards?

The Scotia Group Jamaica boss explained: “ When we rolled out our strategy last year, our Global CEO Scott Thompson spoke about us being the leading international Canadian bank. One of the things we are focused on is looking at the organisation at an enterprise-wide level. We are connecting all the dots. These promotions for Sabrina, Debra and Perrin really represented expanded roles and they will take on these additional countries while still holding their substantial role in-country.

“What it means however is downstream, their direct reports will have more opportunities for job enrichment and expansion and they continue to support the heavy lifting we do in Jamaica.” 

Scotia Jamaica has made a major push with digital onboarding. Many are of the opinion it has the best online and banking app in Jamaica. What has been the uptick like with digital onboarding?

Tugwell-Henry responded: “ Right now we are still in the early stages. We ran a pilot and the client response was very positive. We expect to continue to acquire more of our new accounts digitally. Before we had digital onboarding for major bank clients (which is the most recent offering), we actually had digital onboarding for second accounts for existing clients. Today, that is the primary channel for an existing client to open a second deposit account.

“We are still in the early days of the full rollout for digital onboarding for major bank clients but by and large the response by the market has been very positive. What we are finding is that even clients that don’t have the confidence to do it in the convenience of their homes, they can come into the branch and that is the process that we are using to onboard them. We are moving to get 100 per cent of our clients onboarded digitally.”