Dubai: Invest Bank pared its losses for the first three months from a year ago, totaling Dh99.49 million against Dh105.91 million.
The bank confirmed that it had limited funding exposure to sectors that are heavily impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, those such as “airlines, hospitality, retail, construction and real estate, and tourism”.
Invest Bank has budgeted an initial impact charge of Dh45 million as “overlay adjustment” for expected credit losses.
It was in April last year that the Sharjah government acquired a majority stake in the bank.
But the bank turned in a net profit before impairment charges are factored in – at Dh20.47 million. But that’s still a drop from the Dh40.62 million it had as net profit for the first quarter of 2019.
On the pandemic’s likely impact on its numbers, the bank said: “The Group is actively reviewing its portfolio of loans and advances, which comprises mainly corporates, commercial and SME, [and] focusing mainly on exposures to sectors considered to be highly impacted.”
The bank is “carefully” assessing requests for deferment of principal or interest payments.
“At this stage, sufficient information is not available to enable the Group to individually differentiate between a borrower’s short-term liquidity constraints and a change in its lifetime credit risk.”
