AS 2025 gears up to be a potentially turbulent year with wild market swings Sagicor Group Jamaica Limited (SJ) is looking to continue its digital transformation journey while improving collaboration across the group’s numerous subsidiaries.

This was revealed at Sagicor Group Jamaica’s first-quarter (January to March) media briefing held last Thursday with Group President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Zacca and other executives. Sagicor Group has been introducing different digital tools over the last four years across its different subsidiaries, but in the face of a tough year there is also a push to upsell services across the group to clients.

“One of the key mandates that our president has given us for this year is that we need to work closer together within the group. So, what you’ve seen happening this year is that we, as the commercial bank, are working together with investment, life, and it’s a major thing. So, when we go out to market and be in our client’s corner, we’re not only asking them if they have banking products, but someone else is also asking the client about life insurance, investments, etc,” stated Chorvelle Johnson Cunningham, CEO of Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited (SBJ).

Her comments come at a time when credit impairment losses for most companies went up during the first quarter, with the bank’s loan loss provisions rising 47 per cent from $219 million to $322 million. SBJ’s interest income and capital gains improved 13 per cent to $4.35 billion, with net profit down eight per cent from $531 million to $487 million due to higher operating expenses. The CEO noted that staff will be deployed more often on the road in 2025, to foster greater client engagement.

SBJ piloted its first phygital branch last year at New Brunswick Village, St Catherine, and should have a functional digital wallet rolled out later this year. This is on top of further upgrades to Sagicor eBank and building a deeper relationship with Alliance Financial Services Limited on the prepaid Mastercard introduced last year.

There are other initiatives currently being rolled out such as Alife and Sagicor Evolve under Willard Brown, the newly minted CEO of Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited. Brown noted that there are other projects in the pilot stage that are aimed at cutting down processes which usually take a three-to-four-hour branch visit, to as short as 20-30 minutes.

“At the end of the day, in three years you will be able to touch every part of Sagicor Group Jamaica digitally and in a seamless way. In insurance, you have to underwrite some products when you look at the client, the actuarial view, and price accordingly. We’re moving to digital automated underwriting across all of our operations,” Zacca added on the digitisation push.

This five-year digitisation journey is being led by Joanna Banks who was given expanded responsibilities as chief technology officer on May 1. Banks noted that the group just entered its third year of the journey, with the first two years being foundational and the next one to three years seeing releases that clients can interact with as well.

These moves come after Sagicor Group entered Panama last year and with Travel Cash Jamaica Limited, a 51 per cent-controlled subsidiary, receiving its microcredit licence on May 9. Travel Cash reported $157.14 million in revenue and $52.29 million in net profit for 2024, with $1.12 billion in assets and $882.22 million in equity.

Sagicor Group’s consolidated insurance revenue grew 14 per cent to $14.30 billion, with the insurance service result up 153 per cent from $1.02 billion to $2.59 billion. The previous period had a US$5.5-million loss on onerous contracts as well as actuarial model adjustments.

The group’s net insurance and investment result improved 84 per cent, from $4.86 billion to $9.54 billion, as the group benefited from $2.70 billion in unrealised capital gains versus Q1 2024 where it had $1.58 billion in unrealised capital losses largely from certain bond holdings. After accounting for a share of loss from its associates and higher operating expenses, the group’s profit before tax improved 201 per cent to $5.34 billion with consolidated net income rising 295 per cent to $4.04 billion — $3.97 billion being attributable to shareholders.

Sagicor Group’s asset base grew four per cent during Q1 from $597.79 billion to $620.57 billion, with financial investments of $379.61 billion, loans and leases of $144.69 billion, and cash of $30.84 billion. Total liabilities stood at $514.21 billion with deposits at $296.14 billion while consolidated equity was $106.36 billion, $104.24 billion being attributable to shareholders.

SJ closed Friday at $42.94. which left it up six per cent in 2025 with a market capitalisation of $167.71 billion, the second-largest market cap of any company on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) behind Scotia Group Jamaica Limited. Sagicor Group Jamaica will host its eleventh annual general meeting on May 22 at The Auditorium by its head office on Barbados Avenue.

“As I said at the beginning, it’s cautiously optimistic. We are monitoring the state of the capital markets and asset markets globally and have strategies around that. I think Tracy [-Ann Spence] spoke to the fact that the team is [keeeping] a very close eye and being nimble in terms of our asset management to react to various volatility and headwinds that may or may not arise,” Zacca closed on his outlook.