HIGH volatility and the harsh realities of current market conditions which compressed margins for the JMMB Group last year will not deter its business from going after increased growth over the short term, Group CEO Keith Duncan has said.

Duncan, speaking at an investor briefing on Tuesday, said that despite the impaired performance largely attributed to challenging market conditions organic growth for the company remains strong, with the business being more than well-positioned and adequately capitalised to go after new opportunities.

JMMB’s recently published audited results for the year ended March, which shows a near halving of its profits or a 46 per cent decline to $6.3 billion and a 12 per cent fall-off in revenues to $23.4 billion, stood well below its record 2022 numbers which delivered net profits of $12 billion and total operating revenues of $26.6 billion.

“The group’s financial results basically reflect the macroeconomic challenges we face globally, particularly impacted in Jamaica and Trinidad which have had to deal with a series of spikes in interest rates. However, as we move forward we continue to engage our strategy of smart growth and revenue diversification throughout the three countries in which we operate and across our various business lines, as we also continue to ride this economic wave,” he said.

“Additionally, we continue to protect our clients and to centralise, standardise, and digitise our operations to improve efficiencies as we also invest in the development of our people,” he further stated.

Burdened by high inflation and rising interest rates which moved from 0.50 basis points, or half of a per cent, to 7 per cent in Jamaica, and from 3 per cent to 7 per cent in Trinidad, the regional financial conglomerate, after realising negative impacts across its investment, banking and remittance businesses, has on the other hand also seen positive results in its loan portfolio which grew 25 per cent year on year. That was above industry levels which, coupled with favourable results from its 23.3 per cent stake in Sagicor Financial Company Limited (SFC), contributed 43 per cent or about $2.7 billion in the group’s share of profit and $1.1 billion in dividends.

By country performance, SFC’s contribution along with the local operations of the group is said to be responsible for approximately 57 per cent of overall earnings, with the remaining 18 and 25 per cent coming from its Dominican Republic and Trinidadian operations, respectively.

“We are confident that even as we pass through this economic cycle we will continue to grow, even as through our balance sheet we have continued to do so — despite at lower margins,” Duncan said, expressing cautious optimism however for growth to be much better as rates come down.

The group — in keeping with its smart growth strategy centred on revenue diversification, stronger capital management, and an increase in core activities — is also now looking to expand its digital payments solutions as it adds more value for clients to bolster their individual experience. This, the group is immediately working to enable with the roll-out of its prepaid money card, a queue management system to eliminate wait times, along with new features to its Moneyline platform, and the retrofitting of its ABMs to process the new bank notes.

General manager of group digital services at JMMB Gifford Rankine said that with plans now fully advanced for the entity’s promised roll-out of a digital wallet to market, customers are being urged to “stay tuned” for the upcoming happening in this space.

Bullish on its securities portfolio, the group through its private equity vehicle Vertex SME Holdings company, having recently completed a few deals from what it considers to be a strong pipeline of projects, said it is now looking forward to closing on a second investment in a new area of business. This follows its previous investment in Guyanese quick service provider Corum Group, in which it acquired a minority stake.

“We plan to make some announcements very shortly, but this investment is in a major car rental company on which we’ll provide more details as we progress,” said general manager of JMMB Securities Limited (JMMBSL) Kareem Tomlinson.