Published:Sunday | March 27

National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited shareholder Orette Staple (forefront) appears to ponder aspects of the bank’s annual report, drawing the attention of other shareholders during the annual general meeting at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston last Thursday.

National Commercial Bank Jamaica (NCB) revealed that it recently started targeting small businesses in the United Kingdom (UK) to secure loans locally through its retail banking division.

It is the latest drive to focus on overseas small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to expand the bank’s loan portfolio.

“The broadened focus of the UK operations is to target the SME sector in the UK. Previously, this arm of the retail business concentrated on the remittance of pensions as well as administrative support to NCB customers living in the UK,” the bank states in its annual report.

For the 2016 financial year the retail arm expects to “focus on credit expansion to the SME segment:, it said. The retail banking division made $1.9 billion in operating profit on revenues of $17.2 billion for the 2015 financial year, or 14 per cent higher profit than a year earlier.

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