(Agence Ecofin) – The Moroccan financial group BMCI published its financial results for the first quarter of 2020 showing a drop of 75.7% in its consolidated net profit, which was only 30.9 million Dirhams, against 127 , 3 million Dirhams in the same period in 2019. The group estimates that, excluding the donation to the COVID-19 Special Fund and the first forecast impacts on the cost of risk, the group’s profit for the period would have increased by 9.7 %.
On a consolidated basis, the cost of risk is indeed up 25.2% on the basis of the annual comparison, and reaches 208.2 million Dirhams. But one indicator that seems to have significantly weighed on the group’s performance is general operating expenses, which increased by 24%, to reach 452 million Dirhams against 264.2 million Dirhams in the first quarter of 2019.
The details of these operating expenses have not been given, but they are not only related to the specific activities of the bank. The social accounts, relative to the performance of the latter, reveal operating expenses of 395 million Dirhams, against 392.3 million Dirhams in 2019. Note, however, that the banking entity of the BMCI group continues to have significant external loads.
The analysis of these external charges which include rents, repair costs, transport, postage, telecommunications and other external services will be an issue in the analysis of the banks’ future performance. Technically, the Covid-19 came to change the way of working, putting several employees in partial presence in the offices or even in the absence of the offices.
The major American banks have already started to reflect on the subject. They question the need to continue to inflate this type of expense, even though the offices will not be 100% occupied, and experience of working from home has shown that for certain services of the bank, a good remote monitoring would have some effectiveness.
Idriss Linen
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