Bank of Maldives CEO and Managing Director Tim Sawyer says the Bank played an important role in supporting the country during the pandemic and reiterated that the Bank will remain alongside Maldivians through these extraordinary and challenging times.

Sawyer made the comments while speaking at the bank's Annual General Meeting held online today.

He said that the Maldives was one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic and that BML understood the potential economic impact of Covid early on and laid out a strategy to support the country and keep the economy afloat.

We continued our banking services, supported customers financially impacted by the pandemic through short-term financing and moratorium and we stepped up to deliver government lending schemes, administering the EIB Covid-19 Recovery Loan scheme and more recently, the Economic Stimulus Loan. A key part of our Covid strategy was on securing much needed external funding to ease liquidity pressures. Our strategy proved successful. We secured almost USD 90 million in funding from multiple lending agencies and at the same time, we also worked to ensure we had adequate foreign currency reserves to support the country
BML CEO and Managing Director Tim Sawyer

Reflecting on last year’s performance, Tim stated that although the bank began the year strongly, the pandemic and subsequent impact on its key income lines, there was a significant hit to the bank's financials.

He said that BML ended the year with a Profit after Tax of 325 million Rufiyaa, a reduction of more than 60 percent compared to 2019.

Sawyer said the bank continued to grow, welcoming more than 12,000 new customers and recorded more than MVR3 billion in new lending in the last year.

He said that the Bank was in a much better position today than it was this time last year and will bounce back from the dip in performance. We will inevitably face challenges, but it has the strength to overcome these as the bank work for sustainable growth.

Business BML