Lower Interest Rates Hit GTBank as Q1 Profits Slide 9.03%

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank), Nigeria’s largest lender by market capitalization has released first quarter (Q1), 2021 results showing a slide in after-tax profits by 9.03 percent to N45.55 billion from the year ago period.

This was largely due to an 18.43 percent fall in net interest income and a slight increase in loan loss expenses.

A major cause of the fall in interest income was in the investment securities line item which fell by 81 percent to N3.8 billion from N20.56 billion in the earlier period.

Nigerian banks have been dealing with lower interest rates over the past 2 years engineered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in a bid to stimulate the local economy and grow loans to the real sector.