Ecobank Uganda registered a strong performance turnaround during the year ending 2022, with audited Profit before Tax (PBT) increasing by 157% to UGX 4.5 billion in 2022, while Profit After Tax (PAT) increased by 104% to UGX 401million in 2022 from a loss of UGX11.0 billion in 2021.
Despite a challenging operating environment marred with high inflation, weakening African currencies, and slower economic growth, the bank’s total revenues increased by 8% to UGX 57.7 billion.
Our investments in technology, digital capabilities and improved risk management models, drove cost efficiency, value for money and reduced our cost-to-serve, resulting in a 13% drop in costs. Coupled with revenue growth, we achieved a better cost-to-income ratio of 92% in 2022 down from 115% in 2021.
We improved our credit portfolio registering recoveries of close to half a billion in 2022.
These results demonstrate our renewed commitment to our customers and enhanced value propositions to support our customers’ needs. Our strategy focused on customer-centricity, digitisation, and partnering to scale which was anchored by our business segments; Consumer Banking (CSB) and Commercial Banking (CMB), demonstrated through our diversified customer value propositions to serve our retail, Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and corporate customers with tailor-made solutions.
We continue to invest and transform our digital platforms with unique offerings like cardless withdrawals (Xpress Cash at our ATMs and agents), business payment systems and integrations (OmniLite and OmniPlus) and self-service mobile app features. We revamped our short code *235# and our internet banking⏤Ecobank Online to give our customers a superior experience as they would on our Ecobank Mobile app. Using our Ecobank Online platform, our existing and yet-to-be account holders can open an account on the go. As a result, customer deposits increased by 18% year-on-year, to UGX 444 billion.
We further revamped the customer experience principles as our new service culture, which in part further enabled the building of a better client service environment for our customers.
At the same time, our balance sheet remains liquid and adequately capitalised, providing us with the capacity to serve our customers better.
Ecobank Uganda carries the strength of the entire Ecobank Group that allows the bank to provide customer solutions across the continent, giving our customers access to subject matter experts in banking and banking products in at least 35 African countries which supports our strength in trade.
Outlook For 2023 And Beyond
Looking ahead, we will continue to innovate and create value for our customers. Customer experience remains at the heart of our strategy and we remain committed to providing relevant solutions through digitisation, and partnerships. Our human capital is our service delivery engine which we pride in and will continue to empower.