By Chinwendu Obienyi
Fidelity Bank Plc has revealed plans to attain the Tier-1 bank status in Nigeria and achieve 7.5 per cent of total market share of deposits by 2025.
The plan was unfolded as its shareholders unanimously approved the payment of a cash dividend of 22 kobo per share to all shareholders whose names appear in the register of members at the close of business on April 16, 2021.
This translates to a dividend yield of 9.2 per cent, making it the fourth most rewarding bank to investors in the Nigerian Capital Market (NCM).
Addressing shareholders at the bank’s 33rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos on Friday, the Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, announced her management plans to make the bank one of Nigeria’s Tier 1 banks by 2025.
Onyeali-Ikpe noted that Fidelity Bank’s local currency deposits grew by 49.6 per cent to N1,400.8 billion and constituted 82.5 percent of total customer deposits while foreign currency deposits grew by 3.3 percent to N298.2 billion accounting for 17.5 percent of total deposits.
She further highlighted that the bank’s retail banking push continued to deliver impressive results as total savings deposits increased by 54.2 percent to N424.4 billion, making it the 8th consecutive year of recording double-digit growth in savings deposits.
Speaking on the strategy for the current financial year, Onyeali-Ikpe, said, “We will continue to focus on redesigning our systems and processes to enhance service delivery, deepen our cost optimisation initiatives to reduce operating expenses, and enhance our overall risk monitoring capabilities to ensure both internal and external risks are identified and mitigated.
Our growth aspirations will be sustained while we continue to identify new opportunities in the new normal. On the back of the evolving dynamics in the economy, we will continue to increase the adoption and migration of customers to our digital platforms and increase our retail banking market share through innovative products and services”.
Earlier in his opening remark, the Chairman, Board of Directors, Fidelity Bank Plc, Mustapha Chike-Obi, reassured shareholders at the AGM that the bank would maintain the high corporate governance standard and also ensure the bank continued in its growth trajectory in the years ahead.
“We will continue to strengthen our enterprise risk management capabilities to ensure the sustainability of our business, while modeling our governance practices to align with international best practice”, said Chike-Obi.
Commending the bank for its stellar performance, President, Association for the Advancement of the Rights of Nigeria Shareholders, Dr Farouk Umar, praised the management for posting encouraging performance in 2020 despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.