In Botswana, the net result of Standard Chartered Bank’s subsidiary slumped by 85.26% in 2015 to 47.3 million Pula ($4.34 million), from 311 million Pula ($28.5 million) in 2014, financial results published at the end of last week shows.

The firm’s management said the poor performance is due to fall in commodity price which affected mining companies, that contributes significantly to Botswana’s economy.

In detail, operating income was impaired by huge interest rates (385.6 million Pula in 2015 against 246.26 million Pula in 2014), leading to net interest revenues slumping by 21% to 471.3 million Pula. Meanwhile, earnings for commissions and charges dropped by 7% to 252 million Pula and other earnings reached 156.6 million Pula, against 207.18 million Pula in 2014.

In this context, the bank’s net banking product over the considered period was 880 million Pula ($80.6 million) against 1.073 billion ($98.4 million) in 2014. In addition to the low-performance, Stanchart Botswana had to pay greater operating fees, as administrative costs increased to 425.7 million Pula during the reference period.

Operating in Botswana for close to 120 years, the group is quite optimistic about the ongoing year, 2016. Most of its heads estimate that most governmental projects which should restart growth of the country’s GDP, will require financial support and thus give banks the opportunity to increase their revenues.

Idriss Linge