Stanbic BotswanaSound credit control and a focus on risk management ensured Stanbic Botswana achieved a solid net profit growth of 25% in 2007. As three of its competitors became mired in fraud and bad debt write-offs in 2007, Stanbic managed to grow its loan book by 50% while lowering its non-performing-loan ratio to just 0.19%.
Bank AustriaWith a 104.1% increase in net profits last year, Bank Austria emerges as the clear award winner for 2008. The bank managed to turn in impressive results on all fronts, with a 13.8% boost in Tier 1 capital, assets up 35.6%, a return-on-equity of 17% (compared with the previous year’s 15.8%), the cost-to-income ratio down 5.7 percentage points to 52.2% and a decline in the non-performing-loan ratio to 2.3%.
ASB BankASB remained New Zealand’s fastest growing major bank in 2007, maintaining or growing market share across all market sectors. In 2007, pre-tax profits rose 19.7% to $584m while Tier 1 capital went up 8.1% to $2.16bn and total assets rose 18.7% to $40.7bn, which provided a strong 21.3% return on equity.