TheCable

Fidelity Bank says the 66% profit growth it recorded in the first half of 2017 can be attributed to efforts made to deepen digital banking and increased savings deposits.

In a statement, the bank said it recorded growth in significant indices in the first half of the year that ended June 30, 2017.

Details of the audited results, released at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), showed that gross earnings rose by 22.1% from N70.3billion in H1 2016 to N85.8 billion for the corresponding period at June 30, 2017.

“The growth in gross earnings was driven primarily by a 27.8% increase in interest income and a 0.7% growth in net fee income to N11.2 billion,” the statement read.

“Similarly profits surged by 66.7% from N6.1 billion in 2016 to N10.2 billion, just as it recorded significant improvement in other key performance indices such as net interest margin of 7.4%, cost income ratio at 67.3% and capital adequacy of 18.4% in the period under review.”

Nnamdi Okonkwo, Fidelity Bank CEO, said: “Our balance sheet optimization initiatives continued to deliver improved results as net interest margin (NIM) increased by 7.4% in H1 2017 from 6.4% (2016FY), just as the growth in the yield on our earning assets outpaced the increase in funding costs.

“The process improvement and digital banking initiatives in the period helped to optimize our cost profile as total expenses declined by 1.8% (despite the high inflationary environment) leading to a reduction in our cost to income ratio (CIR) to 67.3%.”

“Savings deposit increased by 3.9% to N161.1 billion in June 2017 on the strength of improved cross selling of its digital banking products and about 30% of customers now enrolled on our flagship mobile (*770#) and internet banking products.”

He attributed the double digits growth in earnings and profits to the disciplined execution of the banks medium term strategy which focused on deepening its market share in the small and medium enterprises (SME), retail and digital banking business segments.