The latest Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) Integrated Annual Report, which offers a holistic and comprehensive evaluation of the bank's capacity to generate and maintain value for stakeholders, indicates that the bank's loan book is shrinking.

One key factor affecting the bank's books is non-performing loans, which increased by 2% in the 2023/24 financial year. 

"When you have challenges in terms of non-performing loans, you get a lot of impairments, and those impairments are deducted from your balance sheet, and that's the reason for the loan book shrinking," said Johannes Mbango, the acting CEO.

DBN says it is committed to achieving N$100 million in profit. 

The bank attained a net operating profit of N$62 million. 

This follows two consecutive years of net losses, including a loss of N$270 million in 2022/23.

"I know we missed our target there, but going forward, we will be able to catch up, but we are still going to make a reasonable profit – we are on a very sound recovery path."

Particularly, the Kavango West and Omaheke regions did not participate in the DBN's start-up business loans.

"I am aware of that, and we spoke about it internally. In the past, there haven't been targeted interventions from the bank's perspective. Especially those regions you mentioned, Kavango and Omaheke; you can also add Hardap and perhaps Kunene. "

 In terms of improvements in the pipeline, the bank has started development and implementation of a risk management framework and is restructuring its operations to encompass an SME Finance Department, deemed crucial at this stage. 

The DBN has invested N$42 million into youth-owned businesses and N$51.4 million into women-owned enterprises.

74 SME projects received funding, at a total of N$95.9 million. 

The bank's National Mentoring and Coaching Programme provided guidance to over 260 mentees.

Its total assets currently stand at N$7.3 billion, representing a reduction of 8%.