Attijariwafa Bank, Morocco’s leading banking group by market capitalization and volume of transaction, posted a consolidated net profit of MAD1.6 billion ($171.3 million) for the first half this year. Compared to the same period in 2019, this figure is down 54.3%.

Excluding the share of minority shareholders in all of its subsidiaries, the bank’s net profit over the period reviewed is MAD1.2 billion, down 57% from H1 2019. Operations in H1 2020 were penalized by a cost of risk that peaked at MAD3 billion, up 233.1% compared to H1 2019. Provisions for impairment of loans and receivables amounted to MAD 4.7 billion.

In the pandemic context, Attijariwafa Bank says, the teams engaged in the front line and supported by a special mechanism to serve the customers showed an exceptional commitment and mobilization. This allows, among others, to postpone credit maturities for more than 110,000 individual and corporate customers for a total of MAD25 billion in Morocco. On a consolidated basis across all its subsidiaries, this initiative reached 210,000 customers.

Although the company foresaw this underperformance, the market did not positively absorb the results leading the Attijariwafa Bank share to decline by 2.34%. Since 2017, investors who hold the bank’s securities in their portfolios have experienced an unrealized loss of 15.25%, according to data published on the Casablanca Stock Exchange. Despite some variations, the Attijariwafa Bank group has been constant in the distribution of dividends since 2002.

Idriss Linge