¦ At the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius’s dinner for economic operators, you did not seem very pleased with the Governor’s reproaching you with making a lot of profit.

It’s not that I was not very pleased, but things have to be put in their proper context. We were being reproached with two things. One was the allegedly excessive profit that we make and second was the lack of support to investment on the part of the banks.

¦ Is that not justified?

Of course not!

¦ Neither of these is justified? Aren’t you making a Rs.50 million-a-day profi t? Rs 50 million a day is an average based on end-of-year published results of all the 19 banks that operate in Mauritius – banks of varying sizes and with varying clientele and focus, operating domestically but also increasingly internationally with clients who are not based here.

Remember also that end-of-year profits are dependent on a number of factors both on the revenue side and on the expenditure side. Operational efficiency sustained over the accounting year clearly increases profits just like enhanced revenue. This is where the criticism is unjustified. We are one of the most, if not the most efficient sector of the economy. Is this not what we seek and like any other company, aren’t we here to make profits?

¦ Excessive profit? At the expense of the customers?

No not at all. We work with the customer. I think we grow with the customer. You have to look at the number in terms of return on assets and return on equity. In fact, we are perhaps the industry with the lowest return on assets that you can get.

Our return on assets is 1.5% or somewhere there. Second, our return on equity is comparable to other performing sectors. You also have to take into consideration the higher risks we take.

Touria PRAYAG