For the record, as indicated by Wikipedia, “Habib Bourguiba had received support from Abdul Hameed Shoman, founder of the Arab Bank, in the struggle for Tunisia’s independence. Shoman opened an account at the Arab Bank-Egypt. In recognition, Bourguiba, who became president after independence, gave Shoman a license to open a bank branch in Tunis. Thus, Arab Bank Plc opens a branch in Tunis (El Jazira Street) under the name Arab Bank-Tunis, by the will of Bourguiba.
Financially solid, despite the misstep
For forty years, the ATB has known only positive results. In 2011, for example, the net income was TND 53.5 million. In 2015, it was TND 57.6 million. In 2020 and because of provisions, it fell to TND 8.198 million. But this first “Cleaning” did not seem to be enough, and ATB had to resolve to do more and end the year 2021 with a loss of TND 68.5 million after more than TND 140 million of various provisions, despite more than TND 602.7 million in operating income and an NBI of more than TND 290.3 million, up then more than TND 28 million compared to 2020.
The acronym of the ATB including a horse, it is allowed to notice that this deficit result was in the end only a false step. Its two main financial strength ratios (Solvency Ratio and Liquidity Coverage Ratio) remain above the minimum regulatory requirement.
At the end of the first half of 2022, the net income became positive again at almost TND 8.5 million after an operating result multiplied by almost ten (TND 10.382 million in June 2022, against TND 1.259 million in June 2021).
Numbers turning positive
At the end of the third quarter of 2022, the main indicators of activity of the Arab Tunisian Bank showed rather reassuring performances, on the road to a prompt recovery of this bank ranked by stock exchange broker Tunisie-Valeurs 13th in the “annual performance of listed companies as at August 31, 2022”; with a +35.4%, the ATB is, and at the 4th place of the best performing banks, just after the BH Bank, STB and BIAT.
Thus, the net credits of provisions and reserved agios reached TND 5.363,8 million at the end of September 2022 against TND 5.385,4 million on September 30, 2021, sign that the ATB continues to finance the Tunisian economy with the same will and in spite of the provisions.
But it continues to “sweep in front of its doors”, first by this same provisioning, and then by avoiding the most expensive resources. This is what explains, partly, that customers deposits reached TND 5.793,8 million at 30-09-2022 against TND 5.942,4 million at the end of September 2021, and were thus down TND 148.6 MDT. This is the same for the volume of sight deposits, which stood at TND 1.995,6 million at 30/09/2022 against TND 2.063,4 million at the end of September 2021. The decrease by TND 67.8 million bears the imprint of the same will to avoid expensive resources.
Avoiding costly resources
On the other hand, savings deposits amounted to TND 1,489.8 million as of September 30, 2022, against TND 1,407.4 million as of September 30, 2021, with an increase of TND 82.4 MTD or 5.85%, a sign of the saver’s confidence in ATB’s financial soundness
More importantly, the banking operating income reached TND 486 million as of 30/09/2022 against TND 437.8 million as of 30/09/2021, with a rise of 48.2 MTD or 11.01%. On the other hand, the banking operating expenses reached TND 251.2 million on September 30, 2022 against TND 231.4 million on September 30, 2021, that is to say an increase of 8.56%. The bank’s operating expenses reached 152.4 MD at the end of September 2022 against 146.7 MDT at the end of September 2021, that is to say a rise of 3.89%.
The net banking income (NBI) at 30-09-2022 reached TND 234.8 million against TND 206.4 million for the same period in 2021, that is to say a growth of 13.76%. This is the third best sectoral performance.
