TBILISI

TBC Bank, Georgia’s biggest bank by assets, raised its net profit to almost 809 million lari ($270 million) last year from 322.5 million lari as restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 had been eased.

TBC Bank is one of Georgia’s two biggest commercial banks and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The bank’s net interest income amounted to 1.003 billion lari as of December 31, up from 835.4 million lari a year earlier, operating profit – 1.5 billion lari, up from 797.6 million lari, while operating expenses amounted to 545.8 million lari, up from 437.5 million lari.

TBC Bank’s total assets rose 8.6 percent year-on-year to 24.5 billion lari as of December. Total gross loans and advances to customers rose 12.2 percent year-on-year to 17.1 billion lari, total customer deposits rose 19.6 percent year-on-year to 15 billion lari. Total equity rose 25.8 percent to 3.7 billion lari. NPLs were 3.1 percent, down by 0.4 percentage points year-on-year.

Earlier this year, TBC Bank, Georgia’s biggest bank by assets, signed a loan agreement in the amount of $50 million with Proparco, the private sector financing arm of Agence Française de Développement Group, to finance investments and the working capital needs of Georgian small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

In November last year, TBC Bank issued $75 million additional Tier 1 capital Perpetual Subordinated Notes. The issue attracted solid demand from investors across the EU, the UK and the US, evidencing a strong investor appetite for TBC Bank’s credit story. The AT1 issue will allow TBC Bank to maintain an efficient capital structure and strong capital base to fund mid-term growth opportunities.

In 2021, Georgian banks pursued recovery as lenders reported profits that offset the losses incurred a year earlier, when restrictions to stop the spread of the COVID-19 were first put into place, crippling the country’s tourist-reliant economy. Commercial banks reported a total net profit of 2.081 billion lari in 2021 compared to a profit of 99.3 million lari in 2020.

Georgia’s banking sector, which includes 14 commercial banks, of which 14 have foreign capital, started to show its first signs of recovery at the beginning of the last year when some of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic were first eased.

In January this year, the country’s commercial banking sector reported a rise in net profit in amount of 212.696 million lari compared with 113.368 million lari in January 2021 and 114.058 million lari in December last year.

The country’s central bank said that total income was 520.787 million lari, up from 453.052 million lari a year earlier. Banks reduced their expenses to 276.284 million lari, down from 325.001 million lari.