By ADEBISI ADEMOLA
…Secures $15m, N7.3bn credit from AFDB, DBN
Wema Bank Plc has announced N1.58 billion profit, jumping by 29.69 per cent according to its First Half 2018 unaudited financial report.
The lender had reported N1.22 billion profit after tax in 2017 half year unaudited results released to Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last year.
Gross earnings increased by 5.12per cent (Y-o-Y) to N31.93 billion in H1’2018 from N30.37billion in H1’2017, driven by 0.12per cent and 30.45per cent growth in interest and non-interest income respectively.
Year-on-Year PBT growth of 27.44per cent from N1.43billion in H1 2017 to N1.83billion in H1 2018 Awarded the Best Digital Bank in Africa at the 2018 Asian Banker Awards.
The bank announced that it secured $15million and N7.3 billion lines of credit from AFDB and DBN
The acting Managing Director /Chief Executive Officer, Wema Bank, Mr. Ademola Adebise said, “The performance of the Bank in the 1st half of the year was largely in line with our expectations. Deposit grew by 39per cent to N354.88billion (FY 2017; N254.5 billion) on the back of continued acceptance of the Wema brand and the sustained success of ALAT – our flagship Digital Bank.
“We also improved our earnings capacity – Gross earnings increased by 5.12per cent from N30.37billion (H1’2017) to N31.93billion (H1’2018), while Profit before tax closed 27.44per cent higher at N1.83billion.
“The Bank continues to execute on its 5-year Retail strategy with a clear mandate to improve performance by leveraging innovation. The emphasis for us is not just to digitize our product offerings to customers but also to build a technology driven back-end infrastructure to further improve on turnaround time and efficiency.
“The Bank also continues to improve its customer acquisition through the launch of ALAT and the impressive performance of its USSD platform (*945#). The Bank recorded significant growth in Agency Banking partnerships, with the number of agents increasing by 25% to 845 agents as at H1’2018 across all the 36 states of Nigeria. The bank will further leverage on its platforms and in-built capabilities in lowering cost to serve and growing market share.
“During the period, the Bank secured credit lines of $15 million and N7.3 billion from the African Development Bank (AFDB) and the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) respectively. This is further in-line with the Bank’s intent of obtaining long term funding to drive its SME business. The Bank is also expected to open the 2nd tranche of its Debt issuance program in a few weeks.
“With these half-year results, we believe we are on track to deliver on our commitments to shareholders at the beginning of the year.”
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