Sierra Leone Commercial Bank has been ranked best financial institution by the Central Bank of Sierra Leone with its transformative results of pre-tax profit of $10.5 that is equivalent to Le79.5 Billion as at end December 2017, which represents a growth of 122% from 2016.

The Bank under the result oriented Managing Director, Idrissa Alooma Kamara, in spite of the fierce competition and low economic outturn in a pre-election year achieved such historic profits and sustained local market dominance.

During the course of the year, the Bank pursued key strategic priorities in its quest to drive excellence and deliver superior financial performance. With a strong focus on embedding and nurturing a customer centric culture, it invested in digital technologies to excite its clients with enhanced customer experience across multiple touch points.

Through an industrious management, the Bank, achieved industry leadership in the following: Customer deposit of Le1.1 Trillion; the first bank to hit one Trillion in deposits, Recorded the highest profit in the industry i.e. Le79.5 Billion and a Balance sheet size of Le1.25 Trillion; the first and highest ever recorded in the industry

Speaking to our reporter, the dynamic MD said “prioritisation of organic capital growth and strong liquidity performance reinforce our disciplined approach to regain shareholder’s confidence. This is evident in marked improvement in the Bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio of 31.7% against the statutory minimum of 15%”.

The Bank, he said, recorded ROA of 5.9% that exceeded its target of 3%. This sterling business performance is underpinned by the aggressive focus on cost-volume leadership and differentiation. They remain on track in aligning business performance with key strategic priorities to reposition the Bank as the dominant brand.

He said over the period, they embarked on an accelerated investment in digital transformation and deployed state-of-the art technologies and communications infrastructure to deliver their digital enterprise programme which started in 2016.

Consequently, the result for the year was the combination of our growing brand identity, a well-diversified customer deposit base, adoption of a conservative credit risk posture and the scale of premium service delivery from the new ICT infrastructure.

SLCB has 13 branches countrywide with its headquarters in Freetown, the capital. It has thirteen self-owned branch offices across the length and breadth of the country. SLCB, being the country’s first indigenous bank, is a key player in the country’s banking sector, well known for its wide range of world class services.

SLCB which is the country’s lone 100% state owned bank was founded in the 70s to provide an alternative to the country’s two foreign owned banks operating at that time and to serve mainly locals.