BLOM Bank published its unaudited financial statements for the year 2020 revealing a 97.86% y-o-y drop in net after tax profit to $2.47 million, down from $115.41 million in 2019. Said profits, however, incorporate a $42.41 million extraordinary net profit from non-current assets held for sale (HFS) and discontinued operations, which when factored out would result in an operating after-tax loss of around $40 million. In details, the bank’s net interest income rose by 57.25% y-o-y to around $1,173.07 million, outweighing the 34.48% drop in net fee & commission income to $90.89 million and the net loss on financial assets & other operating income amounting to $102.27 million (compared to net gains of $6.10 million in 2019). The increase in net interest income owes to Central Bank directives to lower interest rates paid on customer deposits as per the provisions of intermediate circulars 536 and 544. It is worth noting that the bank recorded some $776.31 million in provisions on expected credit losses during the year 2020, in compliance with BDL directives concerning the calculation of said losses as per the bank’s statement. In this respect, net operating income dropped by 31.65% y-o-y to $385.38 million. Concurrently, the bank’s total operating expenses fell by 23.71% in 2020 to $262.05 million. On the balance sheet front, BLOM Bank’s consolidated assets fell by 9.03% in 2020 to $30.29 billion owing to a 46.32% contraction in the net loans portfolio to $3.12 billion and an 8.40% drop in cash and balances with Central Banks to $18.96 billion. Customer deposits were no exception, dropping by 19.49% during the year 2020 to around $21.06 billion. In this context, the bank’s ratio of net loans-to-customer deposits receded to 14.82% at end of 2020, with shareholders’ equity ending the year 2020 up by 1.16% at $3.19 billion.