JN to tap diaspora to spur growth
Published:Tuesday | November 13, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Chief executive officer of the Jamaica National Group, Earl Jarrett, has indicated that the group will be tapping diaspora markets for a growth fillip in 2019.
"We will be further focusing on leveraging our relationship with our diaspora in the markets in which we operate, the UK, Canada, USA. That is a major area," he said.
Information supplied by the company on Monday indicates that JN Group during its first year of operation realised a surplus of $977 million, down from $1.5 billion the previous year.
The fall-off was blamed on restructuring costs for the company which was launched in February 2017 following a seven-year-long transformation process to bring the JN Group in line with regulations under the Banking Services Act.
Financial subsidiary, JN Financial Group Limited, realised a surplus of more than $2 billion. The JN Financial Group comprises JN Bank Limited, JN Small Business Loans Limited, JN Fund Managers Limited, JN Money Services Limited, JN General Insurance Company Limited and JN Life Insurance Limited.
Jarrett, in a company release on Monday, said the JN Financial Group disbursed some $26 billion in loans to more than 42,000 clients for the year under review.
Some 1,500 mortgages valued at $11.2 billion were disbursed by JN Bank, which represented about 42 per cent of total loans disbursed by the JN Financial Group, it said.
The company said that the financial group also provided some $2.6 billion in insurance premium financing and $1.9 billion in loans for motor vehicle financing. In addition, some $1.28 billion was provided in corporate loans and $1.3 billion in business loans.
The release said that JN Small Business Loans Limited disbursed a record $5.5 billion in loans during the financial year ended March 31, 2018 to 27,601 clients, 20 per cent of whom were new clients.
The financial group reported combined savings and investments inflow of $156.13 billion for the year, with general savings of $95 million and $35.5 billion; added to $15.8 billion in mutual funds under management; $15.8 billion in repos and $7.3 billion in pension funds.
Jarrett said JN Bank, which had its first full year of operation since its launch in February 2017, ended the year with net savings of $6.8 billion and managing more than $113 billion in 700,000 accounts.
JNGI and JN Life Insurance wrote 79,000 policies with a combined insured coverage of $891 billion. Premium income for the subsidiary was $5.7 billion.
Jarrett said the group's non-financial conglomerate, the MCS Group, recorded a surplus of $267 million. The group comprises the technology firm Management Control Systems Limited, the Jamaica Automobile Association Limited, Creative Unit Limited, Total Credit Services Limited and JN Properties Limited.