CHAIRMAN of Republic Bank Ltd, Ronald Harford, has credited the performance of its operations in Guyana as having “bolstered” the company’s fortunes, according to the Group’s third-quarter unaudited financial highlights published August 9 in this newspaper.

Harford indicated that the Group recorded an US$ 11.9M loss on its investment in East Caribbean Financial Holding Limited, the parent company of the Bank of St. Lucia, saying: “This resulted from significant loan loss provisioning due to deterioration in the credit quality of its loan portfolio, as the St. Lucia tourism sector continues to be challenged.”
Despite that, however, he highlighted that “the Group achieved a satisfactory performance….bolstered by encouraging loan growth and improvements in non-interest income in Trinidad and Guyana.”
“Guyana’s economy has..been performing better than those in the region, those suffering from the ills of the fallout since 2008, so that has impacted on the Caribbean countries and Trinidad and Barbados, Grenada, as you know, to a large extent,” Managing Director of Republic Bank (Guyana) Ltd., John Alves said, adding: “As the [Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh pointed out, we have had seven years of positive growth – this is gonna be an eighth.”
Speaking to the Guyana Chronicle on the sidelines of the National Economic Forum on Wednesday last, Alves indicated  that mortgage-related income has risen on the back of a housing boom, saying:  “You know the housing sector continues to grow….and that has helped tremendously.”
He adds that lending to small and medium sized enterprises sector (SME) is also “an area of growth”.
“These two sectors [housing and SME] have played a critical role” in the bank’s operations, Alves emphasised.
The Managing Director also pointed out that lending to big corporate clients has grown as “some projects which were delayed are now taking place.” Noting that many of the projects were in the construction sector, he explained that these “large projects take a long time to get going” and that “there is still a number of them in the pipeline even though we’ve seen that kind of growth.”
Most of the growth in the local branch of Republic Bank, Alves added, is “organic” meaning that it is mainly a result of the Bank’s roster of usual customers expanding.
According to the report, the Group’s after tax-profits for the nine months ended June 2013 are down 2.64% from the corresponding period last year. The report indicates, however, that the Group’s recent acquisition of a 32% stake in HFC Bank Ghana Limited “hold much potential for the Group going forward.”