Scotia Group has reported net income of $8.4 billion for the nine months ended July 31, 2022, representing an increase of $1.1 billion or 15 per cent over the prior year’s comparative period. 

Net income for the quarter also reflected an increase of $1.4 billion or 55.1 per cent over the previous quarter.

The Group’s continued strong financial performance was driven by growth across its core business lines, supported by prudent expense management.

In keeping with its commitment to deliver shareholder value, the Board of Directors approved a dividend of 35 cents per stock unit in respect of the third quarter, which is payable on October 19, 2022 to stockholders on record as at September 27, 2022.

Commenting on the strong performance of the Group, President and Chief Executive Officer Audrey Tugwell Henry said: “The Group delivered solid results for the quarter as a direct result of the effective execution of our strategic plan by our team of committed professionals.

“Our retail business continues to perform well with solid growth in our core deposit and loan portfolios. Our deposit portfolio grew by eight per cent year over year. Likewise, our flagship Scotia Plan Loans recorded growth of 13 per cent over the previous year. We also continued to record sustained growth over several quarters in our retail mortgage business which reflected an increase of 25 per cent year over year. The mortgage business is an area of focus for us as home ownership remains a key financial objective of our customers.”

She added: “In our commercial business, we saw continued improvement with a seven per cent increase in the loan portfolio versus the previous quarter, reflecting an uptick in loan demand as the economy opens up, following the lifting of the disaster risk management measures. We are also focused on cash management for our business customers. We will shortly be launching e Comm +, an enhanced e- commerce solution which we are confident will be well received by the market, especially our SME customers due to the ease of implementation and affordability of these solutions.”

In the meantime, Scotia Investments’ newest funds – The Scotia Premium Short-Term Income Funds – which were launched at the start of the fiscal year are reportedly performing extremely well with the JMD fund already exceeding J$1 billion, and the USD fund exceeding US$20 million.

Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance Company continues to make a strong contribution to the Group with increased gross premium income of $437 million or eight per cent over prior year. Our recently launched Scotia Elevate Universal Life policy has been performing well and we will continue to offer innovative products that focus on protection.

Tugwell Henry continued: “Our customer first strategy is heavily underpinned by the adoption of digital technology. Various initiatives including enhanced public education surrounding cyber security were executed during the past few months to ensure that customers are comfortable using the available technology. These activities have become increasingly important as the number of digital transactions continue to grow. As at July 2022 – 419,155 customers were enrolled in online or mobile banking which remains free for personal banking customers. Our investment and performance in digital banking have garnered international recognition with Scotiabank being named.” 

She added: “Best Consumer Digital Bank 2022 by Global Finance magazine. We are proud of this achievement and we will continue to deliver best-in-class technology solutions and expertise for our customers as we partner with them to fulfill their financial objectives. Our expanded customer experience team has done tremendous work in streamlining processes and addressing customer concerns, resulting in significant improvement in our customer satisfaction and net promoter scores.

“During the quarter, we also continued to offer support to our business customers. We proudly launched the advisory pillar of the Scotiabank Women Initiative (SWI) with a two-day conference for women business owners and operators. This pillar of our programme focuses on building strong corporate governance to foster business success. Along with the other pillars of Access to Capital and ongoing business education, this one-of-a-kind signature progamme is delivering real value for women in business.

“We also maintained our focus on employee engagement with various activities touching all departments during the quarter. Due to the current state of the pandemic, we were pleased to be able to restart our vibrant volunteer programme which has been a hallmark of Scotiabank throughout our history. Volunteer activities took place across the island for Read Across Jamaica Day and Labour Day.

“I would like to express my gratitude to our winning team of Scotiabankers for their commitment to service excellence, our Board for their strong guidance and support, our customers for continuing to choose Scotia Group as their financial partner, and our shareholders for their trust and investment.”