Fidelity Bank Plc has declared its unaudited results for the half year ended June 30, 2016, showing that its deposit base leaped to N829.9 billion from N769.6 billion in 2015 Financial Year.
This result represents a 7.8 per cent increase for the period under review. Also, the lender’s net loans jumped impressively by 23 per cent from N578.2 billion to N711.0 billion.
According to the lender’s financial statement for the period under review, the bank posted a decline of 2.6 per cent and 35 per cent in its gross earnings and Profit before Tax, PBT, respectively.
Meanwhile, total assets surged by 13.5 per cent to N1, 397.9 billion from N1, 231.7 billion last year, total equity remained flat at N183.5 billion.
While total expenses rose by 10 per cent to N31.7 billion from N28.8 billion in H1 2015, operating income increased to N43.6 billion from N42.0 billion in the preceding year, representing a 3.6 per cent rise.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Nnamdi Okonkwo, who commented on the result, said the lender’s financial performance is reflective of the general slowdown in business activities due to lower government revenues, which is a direct fallout of the free fall in international oil prices.
Okonkwo said rising inflation rate, lower disposable income and tougher operating environment for most sectors of the economy as well as the impact of the devaluation on asset quality has all together impacted financial performance.
“Despite the headwinds above, we continued with the disciplined execution of our medium term strategy and recorded decent growth on key operational metrics; deposits, loans, net interest income, electronic banking income and operating income,” he explained.
The organic loan growth of 7.4 per cent was principally driven by on-lending facilities to the public sector. Cost of risk spiked to 1.4 per cent in first half of this year due to the N4 billion impairment charge taken in the second quarter of this year 2016.
