For the fi­nan­cial year end­ing March 31, the JMMB Group record­ed op­er­at­ing rev­enue of J$10.32 bil­lion, an in­crease of 18.2 per cent over the pri­or year, across its op­er­a­tions in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ja­maica and T&T.This growth in op­er­at­ing rev­enue was large­ly at­trib­uted to gains on se­cu­ri­ties trad­ing, for­eign ex­change mar­gins from cam­bio trad­ing, and com­mis­sion in­come; which grew by 47.1 per cent, 59.2 per cent and 26 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

Their pos­i­tive per­for­mance was as a re­sult of vol­ume in­creas­es and the com­pa­ny tak­ing ad­van­tage of mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties. The com­pa­ny's net in­ter­est in­come (NII) re­mained steady at J$5.26 bil­lion, year-over-year.The group's net prof­its while show­ing a re­duc­tion over the pri­or year (2014 � J$3.06 bil­lion to J$2.05 bil­lion), was im­pact­ed in the fourth quar­ter by one-off pro­vi­sion­ing of J$259.3 mil­lion on its in­vest­ment port­fo­lio.

The pri­or year re­sults al­so in­clud­ed one-off gains on ac­qui­si­tion of sub­sidiaries (IBL Group), ac­count­ing for J$361.7 mil­lion.

As the JMMB Group con­tin­ues to lever­age op­er­a­tional syn­er­gies be­ing re­al­ized from its growth in the Caribbean re­gion, ex­pens­es as­so­ci­at­ed with: the ex­pan­sion of the JMMB Group (through the ac­qui­si­tion of the IBL Group and AIC Se­cu­ri­ties in T&T); costs at­trib­ut­able to the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion of the group in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic; in­te­gra­tion costs; and growth in the sub­sidiaries across the re­gion­al mar­kets, large­ly drove the in­crease in the group's op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es.

Those ex­pens­es in­creased from J$5.67 bil­lion to J$7.79 bil­lion. An in­crease in the as­set tax borne by the group, as well as in­fla­tion­ary in­creas­es award­ed to staff, al­so fac­tored in­to the in­crease in op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es, year- over-year.

The JMMB Group's man­age­ment team con­tin­ues to im­ple­ment medi­um to long-term mea­sures, which will lever­age the op­er­a­tional syn­er­gies to be de­rived from the new re­gion­al group struc­ture, as it pur­sues an in­te­grat­ed fi­nan­cial ser­vices mod­el across the var­i­ous coun­tries in which it op­er­ates.These will, no doubt, re­duce op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es in the near fu­ture.

The group con­tin­ues to ex­ceed reg­u­la­to­ry cap­i­tal re­quire­ments as ev­i­denced by its cap­i­tal-to-risk weight­ed as­sets ra­tio, which stood at 14.1 per cent, as against the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (FSC) bench­mark stip­u­la­tion of 10 per cent, at min­i­mum.As a part of the com­pa­ny's long-term strat­e­gy to reap greater ef­fi­cien­cy and syn­er­gies, JMMB Group said it re­mains com­mit­ted to a di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust in the re­gion; which it ex­pects will bol­ster its prof­itabil­i­ty over time, al­though show­ing low­er prof­itabil­i­ty in the short-run.

In keep­ing with this ap­proach, the com­pa­ny has made the penul­ti­mate step in its or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing; from JMMB Lim­it­ed to JMMB Group Lim­it­ed. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in keep­ing with its strat­e­gy of be­com­ing a ful­ly-in­te­grat­ed fi­nan­cial cen­tre, the JMMB Group has rolled out its first in­te­grat­ed branch in Ja­maica, and is tak­ing steps to deep­en its re­gion­al pres­ence with the in­tro­duc­tion of new of­fer­ings across its op­er­a­tions.

Sig­nif­i­cant ex­pan­sion is ex­pect­ed in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, with the in­clu­sion of new busi­ness lines name­ly: bank­ing, in­vest­ment fund man­age­ment (mu­tu­al funds) and a trust com­pa­ny, dur­ing the new fi­nan­cial year. In Ja­maica, two new unit trust of­fer­ings have been brought to mar­ket, in keep­ing with mar­ket de­mand.