Rokel Commercial Bank Pays Dividend to Government
By The Public Relations Department
In the midst of a colossal investment on its expansion, digitalization and marketing programmes, the Rokel Commercial Bank has been able to generate enough revenue to pay a dividend of 6.2 Billion Leones to its Prudential Shareholder – the Government of Sierra Leone.
Reports say the figure could have been higher had the Bank of Sierra Leone cleared the Bank to pay dividend beyond the 2020 financial year.
A cross section of the Bank’s management made a formal presentation of the dividend to President Julius Maada Bio at a short ceremony at State House on Thursday, 2nd December, 2021.
During the ceremony at State House, the president expressed delight at how a bank that was previously known for loss-making and several other setbacks has been able to reposition itself to effectively compete and emerge as one of the top financial institutions in the country and the sub-region.
It could be recalled that the near collapse of the Bank in the years preceding the new administration forced government to recapitalise and increase its shares in the bank to 65% from a previous 51%.
A new Board and management team was put in place to carry out what has arguably been the biggest expansion and marketing programme carried out by any Sierra Leonean financial institution in the last five decades.
Each year, the Rokel Commercial Bank has been making enviable profit margins – and the level of consistency in recording this progressive growth trajectory has made RC Bank the fastest growing and second largest (in terms of assets, profits and customer base) commercial bank in Sierra Leone.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Rokel Commercial Bank achieved positive retained earnings of over Le994 Million and Le44 Billion respectively.
This was a significant leap from the Le46 Billion negative retained earnings in 2018. Simply put, the bank achieved excess and stable profit with strong capital adequacy and an expanded customer base.
The Bank’s investment in Treasury Bonds was in excess of Le800 Billion while it is prudential statistics show a very positive picture in all aspects accounting for just 3% of Non-Perfoming Loans (NPL) while its performing loans have considerably increased to 97%.
Capital Adequacy ratio increased from 15% to 55% – guaranteeing daily cash liquidity for the Bank even at the height of the Corona pandemic.
Perhaps, one major test for the bank’s operational capacity came this year when it was able to effectively and efficiently handle the instant payment of over 30,000 beneficiaries of a government COVID 19- social safety net programme implemented by the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) across the country.
Thanks to an increased human and material resource capacity brought in by the current management.
In an interview with this medium, Managing Director, Walton Ekundayoh Gilpin said; “We remain evermore confident that our growth indices will continue to remain impressive as we seek to reposition RC Bank into the most forward looking and profitable financial institution in Sierra Leone and the sub-region….with our digitalization and marketing programmes fully on course, we will witness unlimited growth and expansion.”
It is also worth mentioning that, like most financial institutions in Sierra Leone, the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow and tested the resilience and adaptive capacity of the bank.
However, with a visionary management, the bank sailed the storm to remain healthy and share its proceeds with its majority shareholder.
