Abidjan - The Ivorian Bank Company (SIB) held on Tuesday its last ordinary general meeting of the year 2020, at its headquarters in Abidjan, in compliance with the strict system of monitoring and prevention of the spread of Covid-19 adopted by the SIB, reports a statement from the bank sent to AIP.

This meeting was an opportunity to present an assessment of the year 2019 marked again by a significant evolution of its main indicators. At the end of 2019, SIB achieved a balance sheet of CFAF 1099 billion, i.e. +3% compared to December 2018. The volume of customers increased by +5% while the Bank's Resources rose to 837 billion FCFA [+7% compared to December 2018. The trend is also upward with regard to its Net Jobs, of a total of 776 billion FCFA in 2019, an increase of 10% compared to 2018, continues the document.

The resolutions proposed by the Board of Directors to shareholders were all approved during the General Meeting. They will receive a gross dividend of 300 CFA francs per share, for a total amount of 15 billion CFA francs distributed, compared to 280 CFA francs per share in 2019.

SIB also continued to control its overheads, which resulted in a 100 basis point improvement in the Operating Ratio (to 45.42%) and a decrease in the cost of net risk (to 0.69% in 2019).

It should be noted that the bank's performance was achieved in a particularly difficult environment with a growth rate of 7.5% still 0.5 points lower than the average of 8% for the period 2012-2016.

Developed with the support of the Attijariwafa Bank group and a support from the international firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the SIB Impact 2023 development plan actually started in 2019 with the conduct of 15 projects that take into account the issues related to all its types of customers, to its organization and internal competences, without omitting the necessary changes resulting from the regulation of the sector, indicates the note.

It has thus seen the opening of the bank's first Business Center, on the site of the Yopougon Industrial Zone, the implementation of a new relationship model in branches accompanied by a reprofiled segmentation for more customer satisfaction, concluded the document.