Moroccan Bank Profits Fell by 43.2%

  • Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco
  • 29 July 2021
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The Central Bank of Morocco revealed that the net profits of banks were stable at 6.8 billion dirhams (680 million dollars) during 2020, i.e. a decrease of 43.2 percent compared to 2019.

According to the Central Bank’s annual report on banking supervision for the fiscal year 2020, the reason for this decline is due to the deterioration in some activities during the quarantine period, the high cost of risks and the banks’ contributions to the fund for managing the Corona pandemic.

The net banking output stabilized at 49.5 billion dirhams (4.95 billion dollars), after registering an increase of 4.9 percent in 2019; This reflects an increase in the interest margin, a decrease in the commission margin, and a stagnation as a result of market operations.

In parallel, the interest rate margin improved by 3.4 percent to reach 33.5 billion dirhams ($3.35 billion), driven by the margin achieved on transactions with customers and clients, benefiting from the lower cost of resources collected and to a lesser extent from the decrease in the net interest cost on bond transactions. For its part, the interests paid on deposits decreased by 9.5% to 7.7 billion dirhams, as a result of the increase in the share of deposits without pay to nearly two-thirds of deposits, in addition to a decrease in the interest rate on savings.

Source (Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Edited)