Barclays Egypt announced its Q1 financial results where Profit after Tax grew to reach EGP 70.953 M, 78% ahead of Q1 2011. Despite the challenging economic and political situation, profits increased, driven by robust performance across all lines and segments. “The largest contributor to our improved profitability is growth of 20% on net interest income and fees versus prior year, in addition to lower impairment charges which dropped to EGP 27.8M, 62% lower than last year. The improvement in impairment is a reflection of the bank's prudent and effective risk management strategies. Furthermore, Barclays Egypt continued its focus on improving efficiency and cost control which was reflected in closing Q1 administrative expenses at EGP 119 M, 1% lower than last year, despite continued investments in systems and people." said Soha El-Tuky, Barclays Egypt Finance Director. "I am pleased with our performance, given it was delivered against a backdrop of turbulent economic, political conditions and ongoing business interruptions. Our business model has moreover enabled us to generate solid quarter on quarter improvements. This was clearly reflected in the increase in Q1 2012 PAT which was 26% higher than Q4 2011, where 2011 performance was largely impacted by the political and economic instability in the country." El-Turky added. With the aspiration to be one of the top financial institutions in Egypt, Barclays is achieving accelerated progress towards delivering sustainable performance and reaching aspired goals. This is evidenced by a 9% growth in customer assets, adding EGP 0.5bn to our portfolio primarily through growth in corporate lending. Furthermore, the business has approved 321.3 M EGP in additional lines in Q1 to support economic growth. This is also evidenced by a profitable Retail business, closing Q1 with EGP 5.8 M EGP versus a loss of EGP 43.3 M EGP Q1 last year. Key retail banking achievements introduced in the first quarter included all-time highest records in bookings of Secured Loans, Cards, Premier acquisitions, Liabilities revenue, and Credit Card Insurance. This increase was attributed to some enhanced facilities that Barclays launched during the first quarter to provide better customer service such as creating a unified source of information for all customer facing employees, converting the Contact Centre to be a profit centre by allowing the call centre agents to perform some transactional banking activities in addition to the launch of the “Barclays Premier League" campaign which offers a bundle of banking products allowing customers to travel and watch Barclays Premier League Matches Live in the UK. “At Barclays, we believe that the best way to support the wide range of our stakeholders is by running a strong, profitable and growing business, which creates jobs and contributes to our communities. In our view, that is the basis for being a force for good. We are not solely interested in contributing to growth today, but we also want to help individuals, businesses and economies progress in ways that will contribute to sustainable growth tomorrow." said Edward Marks- Barclays Managing Director. We measure our success towards these business priorities against key pillars, the first is "Contributing to growth in the real economy" through increasing commercial lending focus and supporting trade and exporters by leveraging our strong presence in Africa. Another measure is "The way we do business": as our clients' interests are at the heart of everything we do, we reinforce our business integrity by striving to improve the service that we provide. In Q1 complaints reached to only 1,638 while in 2011, we managed to reduce the number of complaints to 5,931 from 29,628 in 2010. We have also increased efficiency in complaint resolution and have improved overall customer satisfaction rates to 8.4% according to the latest customer satisfaction survey in Q1 2012 up from 8.2% in Q4 2011 The third and last is "supporting our community" through bank sponsored community investment programs and direct efforts of our employees. In 2011, we invested EGP1mn in community activities. Additionally, we supported 400 people primarily starting their enterprise, employment and money management skills. We also supported 1300 colleagues in providing their times, skills and money to help disadvantaged people during 2011, up 14% on 2010 Barclays has moreover led on some big Community Initiatives one of which was founding and chairing the British-Egyptian CSR Coalition to pool resources and expertise of some 19 BEBA members allowing for larger scale projects in our communities. The first project launched by this coalition was to develop shantytowns in Cairo and supporting vocational training. Barclays has also celebrated the closing of the 3-year global partnership, “Building Young Futures-Meshwary" hosted by the implementing partners, Unicef. The event celebrated the joint success in reaching over 38,000 young people in 10 governorates nationwide by providing them with the skills needed to have a better economical future. “It is likely that the challenging environment will continue throughout 2012, and we know that we have a lot more work to do. But as we adjust and respond to the changes in our markets and workplace, we must remain focused on the foundations of our future strategic priorities by creating synergies between our main segments; retail and corporate business", Marks concluded.
