The International Bank for Trade and Industry of Côte d'Ivoire (BICICI), a subsidiary of the French banking group BNP Paribas, made a loss of 3.612 billion FCFA (5.418 million euros) at the end of the 2019 financial year, announced the leaders of this banking institution based in Abidjan.

This year under review contrasts sharply with that of 2018 when this bank had made a significant profit of 9.793 billion FCFA.

The loss of 2019 is unprecedented especially since over the last five years BICICI has only made profits with jagged levels. From 10.834 billion FCFA in 2014, the profit returned to 9.251 billion FCFA in 2015 before rising to 12.046 billion FCFA in 2016 then falling to 7.100 billion FCFA in 2017 and reaching 9.793 billion FCFA in 2018.

The underperformance of the year under review is caused by the sharp increase of 273% in the cost of risk, which rose from CFAF 4.685 billion at 31 December 2018 to CFAF 17.492 billion a year later.

Taking into account this cost of risk on the gross operating income recorded at 13.880 billion FCFA (against 16.425 billion FCFA in 2018) made the operating result loss deficit with a realization of -3.612 billion FCFA against 11.740 billion FCFA in 2018.

The total balance sheet of the bank however increased by 10.48%, to 748.861  billion FCFA against 677.786  billion FCFA in 2018.

Resources collected from customers increased by 59.117 billion CFA francs, to 631.614 billion CFA francs against 572.497 billion CFA francs in 2018. As for receivables on customers, they fell by 52.467 billion CFA francs to 442.032 billion CFA francs against 494.499 billion CFA francs a year earlier.

During the period under review, interest and similar income remained almost stable, standing at CFAF 36.829 billion compared to CFAF 36.821  billion a year earlier. On the other hand, interest and similar expenses increased by 2.119 billion CFA francs, from 8.477 billion CFA francs in 2018 to 10.596 billion CFA francs in 2019.

The bank's commissions saw their level increase by 959 million FCFA with an achievement of 19.609 billion FCFA against 18.650 billion FCFA at the end of the 2018 financial year.

As for BICICI's net banking income, it fell by 5.84% to 45.937 billion FCFA against 48.787 billion FCFA at 31 December 2018.

For their part, general operating expenses were reduced by 1.53% to 29.088 billion FCFA at the end of the year under review against 29.542 billion FCFA previously.