The Housing Bank for Trade and Finance, reported a decline in net profit by 46% to reach JD38.1 million for the first nine months of 2020.

 As a result of the difficult economic situation across the whole world and the negative expectations of the economic growth as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank continued its conservative approach to build additional provisions for the loan portfolio. As a result, the Bank booked additional loan loss provisions amounted to JD88.5 million during the first nine months of 2020. This led the coverage ratio of the non performing loans to reach 100%.

 The Bank continued to report an increase in total income, which increased by 0.4% to reach JD273.0 million for the first nine months of 2020, despite the decrease in interest rates across the world and the decrease in non-interest income as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

 Total credit facilities increased by 1.6% to reach JD4.7 billion as at end of September 2020.

 Commenting on these results, Abdel Elah Al-Khatib, chairman of the board of directors, said that the Bank continued to perform strong operational results before COVID-19 pandemic despite the challenging economic distress, explaining that the Bank continued its strong performance and was able to achieve and sustain strong results despite the difficult economic challenges as a result of the pandemic. Al-Khatib added that the Central Bank of Jordan and related Governmental procedures played a vital role in protecting the national economy from the huge effects of this pandemic, wishing that all efforts will collectively participate in supporting the Kingdom’s national response in this regard.

 Ammar Al-Safadi, Chief Executive Officer, stated that the Bank will continue in its efforts to protect and strengthen the financial position, as well as maintaining an effective efficiency ratio Al-Safadi explained that the Bank continued to build loan loss provisions, as a precautionary measure, in light of the recent covid-19 pandemic. Al-Safadi added that the Bank maintained strong capital base, with total shareholders’ equity amounted to JD1.1 billion. Capital adequacy ratio and liquidity ratio reached 16.9% and 121% respectively as at 30 September 2020, both ratios are well above the Central Bank of Jordan and Basel requirements.