By Omodele Adigun
StanbicIBTC,a member of Standard Bank Group,has announced its three months unaudited results for the period ended March 31, 2021.
Commenting on the results, Dr. Demola Sogunle, its CEO, said: “The domestic economy remains quite fragile. Negative real returns prevailed in the first quarter as headline inflation continued on the rise, currently above 18 per cent as of March 2021. Economic activities are expected to improve as the authorities take on appropriate actions and business confidence improves. Just recently, in April 2021, the CBN resumed dollar sales to foreign portfolio investors for the first time since December 2020 to clear the backlog of foreign exchange demand.
The Group’s profitability in the first quarter moderated year-on-year due to pressure on trading income. Trading activities in our global markets business slowed down compared to prior year operating expenses from regulatory induced charges increased, as well as the continued pressure on risk asset yields.The decline was partly cushioned by the year-on-year improvement in net fee and commission revenue as well as an impairment writeback of N155 million in Q1 2021compared to the charge of N1.97 billion in prior year.The impairment write back was due to releases and after write-off recoveries achieved during the quarter.
Again, he diversity of our earnings proved supportive during the period.Wealth’s profitability improved from prior period and provided succour for the contraction in profitability of the Corporate and Investment Banking and the Personal and Business Banking businesses. That said,gross customer loans continued to grow,increasing by 16% from the December 2020 position.The continued loan growth would support margin accretion and ultimately compensate for the pressure on yields.
