By Fola James
The managing director/ chief executive officer of Fidelity Bank Plc Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe has disclosed that the over 50 per cent increase in profit recorded by the commercial bank in the 2020 Financial year is due to the lender’s resilience in the face of serious challenging economic environment. The commercial bank’s chief executive said in a statement that core operating profit increased to N44.9 billion in the 2020 financial year compared to N29.8 billion in 2019.
Fidelity Bank’s Board of Directors has now proposed N6.4 billion at 22 kobo dividend per share to its shareholders.
Onyeali-Ikpe made the comment on the bank of the 2020 Financial Statement released by the bank to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE cited by the magazine.
“We are pleased with our financial performance, which clearly showed the resilience of our business model as core operating profit increased by 50.9% to N44.9 billion from N29.8 billion in 2019.We also saw a significant improvement in our efficiency indices as cost-to-income ratio moderated downward to 65.1per cent from 73.4 per cent in 2019.”
“However, Profit before Tax (PBT) dropped by 7.6% to N28.1 billion as we proactively increased our provisions on risk assets to N16.9 billion from a net write-back of N0.6 billion in 2019,” the bank’s boss said.
The bank, according to the statement posted N28.1 billion profit for financial year 2020 apart from posting 50.9 per cent growth in core operating profits from N29.8 billion in 2019 to N44.9 billion, while profit before tax increased by 7.6 per cent to N28.1 billion from N30.4 billion in the previous year 2019.
The DMB’s net revenue increased by 15 per cent from N111.8 billion in 2019 as customer deposit rose by 38.7 per cent from N1.225 trillion to N1.699 trillion in 2020; the balance sheet contracted as total assets grew by 30.5 per cent from N2.114 trillion in 2019 to N2. 758 trillion in 2020 financial year.
Meanwhile, Onyeali-Ikpe said the bank is happy that customers are taking advantage of the its internet banking by successfully migrating to its multiple digital channels, because “as seen in recent years, the bank’s digital retail banking approach has continued to yield positive results. Though Digital Banking income dropped by 18.8% due to the revised banker’s tariff, it increased by 19.6% quarter on quarter on account of increased customer adoption as more services were migrated to the bank’s digital channels”.
Records indicate that over 52 per cent of customers are now enrolled on the bank’s mobile/ internet banking compared to 47 per cent in the comparing year, while 88.4 per cent of the commercial bank’s customers’ transactions were done on the digital platform products and more than 81 per cent of total transactions were done on digital platforms.
