Banks listed on the Bourse des Valeurs Mobilières de Tunis (Tunis’ stock exchange)) had a cumulated Net Banking Product of 1.5 billion Tunisian dinars ($684.5 million), in the first half of the year ended last June 30. Financial results for the period show that this performance is 10.1% higher than that of the same period in 2015 (1.36 billion dinar).

Moreover, data released by 10 out of the 12 banks listed and estimates from the Ecofin Agency for two of them (Société Tunisienne des Banques and Arab Tunisian Bank) show that these institutions totaled a net global result of 329.2 million Tunisian dinars ($150 million) for the period, against 263.16 million dinars on June 30, 2015. This should represent a 25% year-to-year increase.

The banks’ good performances made the financial services sector one of the most productive markets of the Tunisian finance market, with a bit more than two billion dinars of cumulated revenues. In this context, investors kept investing in the banking sub-sector. On the BVMT, the index that regroups them soared by 8.38%.

Also, the index for finance firms (Banks, Insurance, Leasing and Investment) was the most performing of the market, growing by 7.5%.

The least-performing sector was the consumer services sector. Its result on the stock slumped by 4.32%. In this sector, equipment and automobile fell by 27.9% over the period, while body lotions and household products surged by 35.02%.

Idriss Linge