Fidelity Bank’s profit has surged on the back of increased customer transactions as cost control measures put in place by management and board of directors have bolstered efficiency.
For the first six months through June 2021, Fidelity Bank’s profit before tax surged by 72.40 percent to N20.60 billion from N12 billion the previous year.
“We sustained our impressive financial performance with double-digit growth in profit as increased customer transactions drove non-interest revenue while improved operational efficiency continued to moderate cost – to – serve. This resulted in a 72.4% increase in profit before tax to N20.6bn from N12.0bn in H1 2020,” said Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, MD/CEO of Fidelity Bank Plc.
A review of the financial result for the period indicates that Gross Earnings increased by 6.2% YoY to N112.3bn on account of 27.8% growth in Non-Interest Revenue (NIR) to N23.8bn from N18.1bn in H1 2020. NIR was driven by strong growth in Commission on Banking Services (57.7%), Account Maintenance Charges (50.6%), Digital Banking Income (49.4%) and Trade Income (33.7%) etc. as total customer induced transactions across all distribution channels increased by 58.0% YoY and 21.2% QoQ.
“Digital Banking gained further traction as we now have 55.1% of our customers enrolled on the mobile/internet banking products and 89.3% of customer-induced transactions were done on digital platforms”, explained Onyeali-Ikpe.
The Bank showed a good appetite in funding the real sector with Net Loans and Advances increasing by 15.8% YTD to N1.53 trillion from N1.32 trillion as at December 2020.
However, the actual growth was 14.7% while the impact of the currency adjustment (2020FY: N400.3/$ – H1 2021: N410.6/$) accounted for a 1.1% YTD growth.