Sco­tia­bank T&T’s fo­cus on dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion con­tin­ues to help the bank de­liv­er bet­ter cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ences, its Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Gayle Pa­zos has said.

“Our fo­cus on dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and in­fra­struc­ture con­tin­ues to hold us in good stead, de­liv­er­ing a bet­ter cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence by pro­vid­ing safe, re­li­able and ef­fi­cient op­tions to trans­act and in­ter­act with us. We are ex­treme­ly proud of the recog­ni­tions re­ceived this year. Best Bank and Best Dig­i­tal Bank in Trinidad and To­ba­go by Glob­al Fi­nance, for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, Bank of the Year in Trinidad and To­ba­go, by Latin Fi­nance and Bank of the Year in Trinidad and To­ba­go, by the Banker,” Pa­zos stat­ed.

Pa­zos made the com­ments in the Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor’s re­port in the bank’s 2022 an­nu­al re­port post­ed by the T&T Stock Ex­change re­cent­ly.

The Group re­alised In­come af­ter Tax of $684 mil­lion.

This was an in­crease of $80 mil­lion or 13 per cent over the pri­or year.

“This has been an out­stand­ing year, with all our core busi­ness lines con­tribut­ing to this achieve­ment,” she said.

Pa­zos said af­ter two years of neg­a­tive COVID im­pact, Sco­tia­bank T&T saw a very strong re­bound in its Re­tail Bank­ing seg­ment, with net loan growth of $973 mil­lion last year.

“We con­tin­ue to fo­cus on our dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, with nu­mer­ous en­hance­ments made dur­ing the year to our Mo­bile App and On­line Bank­ing. Dur­ing 2022, we added new fea­tures to the Sco­tia Caribbean App and Sco­tia On­line Bank­ing plat­form, in­clud­ing abil­i­ty to up­date per­son­al da­ta with­out hav­ing to vis­it a branch; abil­i­ty to view and down­load an­nu­al loan state­ments and adding the dark mode op­tion to the App,” Pa­zos stat­ed.

“As at year end, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 71 per cent of cus­tomers have en­rolled in our dig­i­tal plat­forms with dig­i­tal trans­ac­tions in­creas­ing by over 1 mil­lion trans­ac­tions or 34 per cent over the pri­or year. Over 96 per cent of all trans­ac­tions are con­duct­ed through our bank­ing and on­line plat­forms with­out di­rect in­ter­ven­tion from our front-line staff,” she stat­ed.

Pa­zos said com­ing out of the pan­dem­ic, the Group has once again proven its re­silience and adap­tive­ness to­wards chal­lenges.

“We con­tin­ue to evolve along with the needs of our cus­tomers and are pleased that the con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in our dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture pro­vides an en­hanced cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence as well as sus­tain­able op­er­a­tions,” Pa­zos stat­ed.

“Our per­for­mance in 2022 demon­strat­ed that we have been able to grow in a safe and pru­dent man­ner, while pro­vid­ing our share­hold­ers with strong, sus­tain­able re­turns and we con­tin­ue to be­lieve in the fu­ture of T&T and re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing with our clients to make them bet­ter off,” she stat­ed.