RBC Fi­nan­cial (Caribbean) Ltd yes­ter­day de­clared net in­come af­ter tax­a­tion of $1.074 bil­lion in its fi­nan­cial year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31, 2023, an 18.4 per cent in­crease com­pared to the $907.82 mil­lion the com­pa­ny re­port­ed for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

The bank hold­ing com­pa­ny’s net in­ter­est in­come in­creased by 49 per cent to $2.10 bil­lion from $1.41 bil­lion.

RBC Fi­nan­cial Caribbean’s to­tal rev­enue for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31, 2023 was $3.16 bil­lion, which was 30.6 per cent more than in 2022.

RBC Fi­nan­cial Caribbean op­er­ates in T&T, Cu­ra­cao, Aru­ba, Cay­man and Bar­ba­dos. Among its sub­sidiaries in T&T are RBC Roy­al Bank (T&T), RBC Mer­chant Bank, RBC Trust and West In­dies Stock­bro­kers Ltd.

In his re­port, RBC Fi­nan­cial chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Dar­ryl White, said: “The com­pa­ny saw in­creased rev­enue from high­er rates on our se­cu­ri­ties port­fo­lio and place­ments with oth­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, along­side loan vol­ume growth across most of the re­gions in which we op­er­ate, as we were able to cap­i­talise on the con­tin­ued post-pan­dem­ic eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery with loan vol­umes up $1.8 bil­lion or 6.9 per cent year on year.”

White said pro­vi­sions for cred­it loss­es in­creased com­pared to 2022 as that year in­clud­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­lease of pro­vi­sions tak­en at the on­set of COVID-19 in 2020.

The bank’s CEO said aris­ing from strong rev­enue growth, its ef­fi­cien­cy ra­tio im­proved to 60.9 per cent in 2023 from 73.6 per cent in 2022.

The bank’s as­sets rose to $66.06 bil­lion as at Oc­to­ber 31, 2023, up from $65.66 bil­lion, one year ear­li­er.

RBC Fi­nan­cial Caribbean’s reg­u­la­to­ry cap­i­tal ra­tio at its year end stood at 27.30 per cent.

“In 2023, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ued to in­vest in en­sur­ing the op­er­a­tional sound­ness of the busi­ness as well as con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide clients with ac­cess to and se­cu­ri­ty of their da­ta to con­duct fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions as and when they need to,” said White.

Mean­while, RBC Roy­al Bank (Trinidad and To­ba­go) Ltd de­clared net in­come af­ter tax of $276.09 mil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31, 2023, an in­crease of 30.3 per cent over the $211.89 mil­lion the T&T-based bank de­clared for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

In his re­port, RBC Roy­al Bank’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Richard Down­ie, said the com­pa­ny’s im­proved per­for­mance “was dri­ven by high­er rev­enues main­ly from net in­ter­est in­come as fee in­come was down and costs in­creased year on year.

“Pro­vi­sions for cred­it loss­es did show and ex­pect­ed uptick from 2022, as the pri­or year in­clud­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­lease of pro­vi­sions tak­en at the on­set of COVID-19 in 2020."