Moroccan Banks Show Resilience with 3% Profit Growth Amid Economic Crisis

The banking sector is showing a 3% increase in net income at the end of June this year, driven by a nearly 200 billion increase in Net Banking Income (NBI), up 18%, and the control of the cost of credit risk over the same period. It stands at 1,123 billion dirhams, reports Lavie eco.

While almost all sectors of the Moroccan economy are experiencing a sudden slowdown and the lack of visibility is accentuating the difficulty, the banks’ loan outstandings have improved for all the banks in the market, except for Bank of Africa, the newspaper notes.

In detail, the loan outstanding has decreased by 1.2% to 193.4 billion dirhams at Bank of Africa and that of BMCI has contracted by 5.2% to 52.8 billion dirhams. Attijariwafa bank saw its outstanding increase by 3.6% to 342 billion dirhams, while BCP made it progress by 1% to 227 billion dirhams.

This performance is achieved thanks to the support measures put in place by the government and applied by the banks, in response to the health crisis. Mainly referring to the Relance and Oxygène credits. For the former, more than 50,000 companies have benefited from them with an outstanding of 5 billion dirhams at the end of June this year, compared to 49,500 beneficiaries for the latter, representing an outstanding of 17.7 billion dirhams.

Regarding deposit outstandings, it has also evolved positively. Almost all banks have noted an increase, the publication notes, specifying that the banks have conducted an active and competitive commercial policy, based among other things on an offer including digital banking services, since the digital channel of banking services has shown all its interest during this pandemic.