Af­ter see­ing an in­crease in loans for fis­cal year 2022, Sco­tia­bank T&T has con­firmed that the pos­i­tive per­for­mance con­tin­ued in the first quar­ter of 2023.

The bank record­ed in­come af­ter tax of $189 mil­lion for the quar­ter end­ed Jan­u­ary 31, 2023, an in­crease of $4 mil­lion or two per cent over the com­pa­ra­ble 2022 pe­ri­od.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank T&T Ltd, Gayle Pa­zos, said, “I am pleased to an­nounce that our first quar­ter is off to a good start, demon­strat­ing the strength of our re­tail and com­mer­cial busi­ness lines.

“Loans to cus­tomers grew by $1.5 bil­lion or nine per cent, with $501 mil­lion in the last quar­ter. This growth has fu­elled to­tal rev­enue of $498 mil­lion, an in­crease of five per cent over the same pe­ri­od in 2022, sur­pass­ing pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els. This loan en­hance­ment is sup­port­ed by an in­crease in de­posits of $1.1 bil­lion or five per cent, high­light­ing the trust and con­fi­dence our cus­tomers con­tin­ue to have in us as their fi­nan­cial part­ner. “

Derek Hud­son, chair­man of Sco­tia T&T, al­so hailed the com­pa­ny’s in­creased loan port­fo­lio in the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year while ad­dress­ing the bank’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day.

“One of the main high­lights is the over­all loan growth of 10 per cent, with sol­id growth from our busi­ness lines—re­tail bank­ing at nine per cent and com­mer­cial bank­ing at 16 per cent. In to­tal, we achieved loan growth of $1.6 bil­lion, one of the high­est an­nu­al growth rates we have ever achieved, while main­tain­ing good cred­it qual­i­ty,” Hud­son said.

Pa­zos al­so not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in dig­i­tal trans­ac­tions among cus­tomers.

“Dig­i­tal trans­ac­tions for the quar­ter end­ing Jan­u­ary 31, 2023 stood at 1.4 mil­lion, an in­crease over last year, with a dig­i­tal adop­tion rate of 51.1 per cent,” said Pa­zos.