Fidelity Bank Grows Profit By 94 Percent

By Bayo Bernard

The managing Director and chief executive officer, CEO of top new generation bank, Nnamdi Okonkwo has expressed satisfaction with the end of the year audited result released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE. The results indicate that the high flying bank surpassed the 2016 results in all key indices, for the year ended 2017.

As a result of the performance, the management of the bank has decided to pay 11 kobo dividend to its numerous shareholders as a way of putting smiles on the faces.

The details of the results released by NSE also showed that gross earnings grew by 18. 3 percent to N179.9 billion from N152billion in 2016.

Profit after tax soared by 93.7 percent to N18.9 billion juxtaposed with N7.9 billion in 2016.

Net interest income, NIM increased by 15.4 percent to N17.5 billion in 2017, while Net operating income rose by 9.9 percent from N86 billion to N78.3 billion, total asset grew by 6.2 percent from N1.3 trillion to N1.4 trillion in the period under review.

The management cut total expenses by 2.3 percent to N65.7 billion from N67.2 billion, while liquidity Ratio stood at 35.9 percent compared with 33.2 percent in 2016.

Okonkwo disclosed that, the Bank sustained its performance through disciplined balance sheet management, strategic cost reduction, increased focus on the corporate, commercial, SME segments and continued execution of its retail and digital banking strategy.

According to him “We are delighted at the results, which showed strong growth in key revenue lines, significant traction in our chosen business segments and a corresponding decline in our operating expenses despite the high inflationary environment”, he said.

“Total operating expenses declined by 2.3% to N65.7 billion leading to the cost-income ratio dropping to 67.5% from 77.3% in the 2016FY,” Okonkwo said, explaining that the bank has implemented its Business Process Review Project to impact positively on operational efficiency.

“The combination of the strong net revenue growth of 9.9% to N7.7 billion and the 2.3% decline in total expenses which translated to cost savings of N1.5 billion resulted in our increased profitability.

“Increased digitization has resulted to over 25% of the bank’s fee-based income as customers’ adoption of its mobile/internet platforms improved to 35% in the 2017FY and led to a 21.0% reduction in vault cash holding,” the bank’s boss stated, adding that “the bank’s retail banking strategy continued to deliver good results. Savings Deposits grew by 15.2% to N178.6bn, accounting for 23.0% of total deposits from 19.5% in the 2016FY.

This has improved the bank’s low-cost deposits ratio to 77.0% of total deposits,” he stated