Standard Chartered Bank says it will only embark on an aggressive loan extension if it sees an improvement in the economy.

The bank last year had to put the brakes on credit extensions because of the inability of some businesses to pay back loans they contracted, a development that was attributed to the challenging economic environment.

This resulted in loan impairment going up by some 300 percent to reach 212 million Ghana cedis.

The bank’s profit declined from 208 million Ghana cedis to 66 million Ghana cedis.

Loans and advances, also went down to 1.278 billion Ghana cedis in 2014 to 1.219  million cedis in 2015.  

Speaking to Joy Business after engaging institutional investors, brokers and journalists on their 2015 financials, Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank, Kweku Bedu-Addo, said the bank owes its shareholders the duty to manage the bank well, hence the decision.

“Every bank or institution has its risk model or portfolio standards. So you lend according to those portfolio standards and within those portfolio standards there would be certain key indications you look at and we are always guided by that. We’ve always been guided by that,” said Kweku Bedu-Addo.

Meanwhile the bank says it has instituted measures that will help improve its financials this year.   

Kweku Baidu-Addo revealed that the success of the bank’s turnaround strategies is significantly dependent on the economic environment.

Click audio link to listen to Mr Bedu-Addo.