Strong Strategic Alignment Enables Resilient Performance for NDB in Q1 2024

National Development Bank commenced the financial year on a positive note, with resilient performance for the first quarter of the year ended March 31, 2024.

Kelum Edirisinghe, Director/ CEO, NDB, commented that the Bank continued to face challenges to relatively low credit demand due to subdued economic activity. Strong alignment to our strategic blueprint built on three core focus areas, namely optimizing the cost of funds, enhancing fee-based income through transaction banking, and enhancing portfolio quality, enabled us to withstand the challenges and deliver consistent value to our shareholders. He reiterated that we remain committed to driving bottom-line growth and improving shareholder value through customer centric, innovative, and sustainable banking practices.

NDB recorded a pre-tax profitability of 1.8 billion rupees for the three months ended March 31, 2024 (period under review), an impressive increase of 31 percent over the same period in 2023 (YoY). Total operating income for the period was 10.1 billion rupees, a YoY increase of eight percent, driven by net interest income of 8.1 billion rupees, net fee and commission income of 1.8 billion rupees in tandem with declining anchor interest rates as a part of the relaxing monetary policy of Central Bank of Sri Lanka led to a YoY reduction in net interest income.