Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank Plc has shown resilience and strength of its ambitious strategy as its profit surged even amid a challenging environment that makes it difficult for sector players to deliver affordable housing.
For the first six months through June 2022, Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank’s net income surged by 123.92 percent from N300.10 million from N134.02 million the previous year.
There was an improvement in efficiency level as net profit margin moved to 33.29 percent to 33.28 percent the previous year, which validates the efficient use of sales to generate higher profit.
A cursory look at the financial statement showed the growth at the bottom line (profit) was largely driven by interest income on loans to customers and investment income.
Interest income spiked by 90.97 percent to N601.44 million in June 2022 from N314.51 million the previous year.
A breakdown of interest income showed interest income from other mortgage loans and advances to customers was up 89.97 percent to N418.77 million in the period under review from N220.34 million as at June 2021.
Managing Director/CEO of the Bank, Sunday Olumorin said the Bank would be ahead of changing trends to deliver value to all stakeholders.
He stressed that the Bank would focus on entrenching the suitable structures and creating an agile and solution-minded team.
“We will continue to explore opportunities and develop products that would deepen mortgage penetration capable of driving the vision and mission of the Bank. We have a strategy of becoming the most dominant Mortgage Bank in Nigeria. We have begun the implementation of new strategies that would increase our customer acquisition while improving the number of homeowners in the country through our flexible mortgage products,” said Olumorin.
Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank’s total loans was up 11.50 percent to N9.67 billion in June 2022 from N8.68 billion the previous year.
There are indications the number of home buyers are most likely to shrink on the back of higher mortgage rates as the central bank has hiked the monetary policy rate so as to tame rising inflation.
Of course, affordability has always been an issue because the majority of Nigerians do not earn steady which paves the way for buying properties.
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) highlighted some of mortgage banks to include: Delay in accessing NHF funds/dearth of long term funds.
The report stated: “Some of the challenges include: Delay in accessing NHF funds/dearth of long term funds. Most of the PMBs continued to find it difficult to provide the required bank guarantee to access the NHF.
Only four out of the 42 PMBs in operations were listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange which meant that many others did not have access to long term funds through the Stock Exchange window.