Bank South Pacific gets return on investment

By Ivamere Nataro 19 November 2018, 12:00AM

The Bank South Pacific (B.S.P.) is the most profitable organisation in the Pacific region, says the Group Chief Operating Officer, Robert Loggia. 

“I know that in the non-mineral extraction business, we are the largest tax payer in Papua New Guinea. If you look at our profitability, we are on the most profitable organisation in the region, profits we retain in Papua New Guinea as well as the other location,” Mr. Loggia told the Samoa Observer. 

“In terms of financials, we have been improving over the past few years, we’ve been going from strength to strength more than anything else, and that’s built on a very solid base in Papua New Guinea, also in terms of the contribution from the locations we have in Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji, Cook Islands, their contribution has been increasing as well, which is great. I think the purchase from Westpac a number of years ago has proven to be very good for us.” 

Mr. Loggia said the bank is also expanding to other areas such as asset finance, life insurance, and develop the grassroots work they are carrying out in all the countries they exist in. 

“Looking at where we can expand our presence in insurance and asset finance business perspective, that is what we will be doing on the short term, from a wider perspective, getting more digital in terms of our offerings to the Pacific. 

“As you know there is an undersea cable being worked on now from Sydney to PNG and to Solomon islands as well, so I guess that will greatly benefit web-based businesses, payments etc., so we have to be ready for that, and we are working towards that. We are looking at how we can improve the payments world. 

“We are trying to make scheme cards more available to the broader market, which will then enable them, go online and purchase.  Last year we introduced the chip enable card in Papua New Guinea, we’ve done so in Cook Islands and by next year we will be doing that in other locations as well.”

Mr. Loggia said they have slightly more than 4,000 employees in all their locations, and 2,800 of them are in Papua New Guinea. 

“We consider ourselves to be the bank in the Pacific and given the particular demographics of the country that we operate in, we feel that we need to have a strong commitment to community, and we operate on that basis. 

“We try to provide as much support to the community as we can, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of going down to the grassroots as well, having community projects, focus on everything from sports facilities, to hospitals, to schools in terms of giving them more improved facilities for students, patients, which is critical for us,” he said. 

By Ivamere Nataro 19 November 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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