By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Commonwealth Bank yesterday disclosed it has become the first bank in the Caribbean to offer Apple Pay to clients after beating first quarter profits from a record-setting 2024 by 6.3 percent.

Tangela Albury, the BISX-listed lender’s chief financial officer, hailed as "phenomenal" the tie-up with Apple's mobile payment service, which will allow the bank's cardholder clients to use it as a transaction mechanism for in-store, in-app and online purchases.

Describing the partnership as a "first" for both The Bahamas and the Caribbean, she signalled that it is part of a wider strategy by Commonwealth Bank to improve access to financial services and payment systems with the consumer-focused lender having installed an automated teller machine (ATM) in North Andros - an area where businesses and residents have decried the absence of physical branches.

Speaking after the bank saw profits for the three months to end-March 2025 increase by $1.1m year-over-year, rising from $17.4m during the same period in 2024 to $18.5m, Ms Albury told Tribune Business it is "reaping the benefits" from growth in its credit portfolio late last year with loan receivables expanding "significantly ahead of the industry average" by more than 6 percent. 

The increased transaction volume drove a more than $2m, or 30.8 percent, year-over-year growth in Commonwealth Bank's fee income to $9.2m. And with net interest income up by 6.5 percent for the 2025 first quarter, standing at $32m as opposed to $30.056m for the same period in the prior year, its improvement on 2024's record results is being driven by its core business rather than loan loss reversals.

The recovery of loan loss provisions slowed by more than 70 percent during the three months to end-March 2025, falling from $4.424m during the same period in 2024 to $1.295m. Ms Albury, though, explained that the reduction signals an improvement in Commonwealth Bank's loan book quality as she predicted the "positive momentum" from the first quarter will carry through the rest of 2025.

Detailing the increased benefits that Commonwealth Bank cardholders will enjoy from the Apple Pay and MasterCard partnership, she told this newspaper: "We are the first bank in The Bahamas to bring Apple Pay to our cardholders in The Bahamas, and the first bank to launch Apple Pay in the Caribbean.

"It is phenomenal for us. Apple Pay is an easy, secure and private way to pay in-store, in-app and online, and we expect this to be the preferred experience for electronic payments among tech-savvy Apple iphone users. To pay in-store, customers simply double-click the side button, authenticate and hold their iPhone over the Point-of-Sale device."

Indicating a renewed focus on improving customers' access to financial services, Ms Albury added that Commonwealth Bank had "overcome the hurdles" of providing ATM services to North and Central Andros.

"The challenges faced by Bahamians banking on the Family Islands were an area where we didn’t need to introduce fancy technologies; they simply needed to be able to bank with ease. We are therefore very pleased to have installed a SMART ATM in North Andros for the benefit of both North and Central Andros," she added.

Turning to the 2025 first quarter results, Ms Albury said: "We fully anticipated that the significant loan growth by the end of 2024 would bolster our future profitability, and we are now reaping the benefits of that in 2025....

"The bank has sustained robust credit quality post-COVID-19, which is reflected in delinquency levels that, at 6 percent, remain impressive and are significantly below the industry average. Nonetheless, we have maintained discipline in our strategy to grow organically, as evidenced by the 11.1 percent increase in revenues year-on-year.

"We experienced significant growth in our loans receivable in 2024, particularly in the fourth quarter, with an average of 6 percent - significantly ahead of the industry average for 2024. This is the foundation on which we expect to see future profits as the result of our operations."

Commonwealth Bank, which saw a significant uptick in general and administrative expenses in both 2023 and 2024, largely held these costs flat during the 2025 first quarter with only a slight increase to $22.999m as opposed to $22.945m in the prior year.

"General and administrative expenses remained relatively stable for the first quarter of 2025, as the bank focuses on controlled expenditures aligned with its operational plans for the current year. Our spending was centred on enhancing the resilience of operations through technology investment, as well as laying the groundwork to take advantage of the pace of innovation," Ms Albury said.

"We are seeing results. Total income reached $41.2m, marking an 11.1 percent increase compared to the 2024 first quarter. This is driven by net interest income of $32m, which is up 6.5 percent year-on-year, primarily due to the management of the bank’s investments, loan growth, continued improvement in the quality of loan assets and stable funding costs.

"Non-interest income grew by 30.8 percent to $9.2m. We continuously review our fees and rates. However, higher transactional volumes drove our fee income growth, along with our efforts to expand our services and product offerings over the past 12 to 18 months. We have observed a positive contribution from expanding into merchant-acquiring services," she added.

"The reversal of impairment expense is important given that it signals the underlying improvement in credit quality related to our loan book. We focus on profitability and growth in a sound way, deploying capital in a way that manages the risk profile of the bank."

Turning to the outlook for the remainder of 2025, Ms Albury told Tribune Business that shareholders had received a collective $26m in dividend payments during the first five months of 2025. She added that such capital returns were important given that trading activity on the Bahamas International Securities Exchange (BISX) is "highly inefficient".

"Following the strong performance in 2024, we made the single largest extraordinary dividend payment in the Bank’s history of four cents per share, paid to shareholders in May 2025. This was in addition to the two cents extraordinary dividend paid in April 2025 and the regular quarterly dividend of three cents per share in March 2025," she added.

"By the end of May, we had paid out $26m to investors, reflecting our confidence in the strength of operations... We expect to maintain our positive momentum throughout the remainder of 2025. While hurricane season is upon us, along with the ongoing geopolitical and global trade uncertainty, our disciplined approach to growth will serve as the firm foundation on which we operate."