By Omodele Adigun
Wema Bank Plc has announced its unaudited half yearfinancial results, growing its pre-tax profit to N4.3 billion. Its Managing Director, Mr. Ademola Adebise, commenting on the results, said “we are pleased to release our results for the first half of the year. Our performance speaks to the spirit of resilience that runs through the organisation as we have strongly bounced back from the covid impacted performance of the same period in 2020.
“As the economy opens back up fully, we expect to see a stronger performance for full year 2021. Over the course of the second half of 2021, the bank will continue its strong focus on the digital business, pushing for further gains in customer acquisition, consumer lending and transaction volumes, while on the commercial side of the bank, we will continue to aggressively grow our commercial lending business alongside trade and other revenue lines.”
The bank recently appointed Mr. Emeka Obiagwu as an Executive Director while Prince Olusegun Adesegun and Adeyemi Adefarakan were appointed as non-Executive Directors.
The bank’s Chief Finance Strategy Officer, Tunde Mabawonku, said: “We are delighted to announce the bank’s H1 2021 results. The performance shows growth in key financial metrics despite the challenging macro-economic environment arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Wema Bank recorded year-on-year (YoY) growth of 149 per cent in profit before tax (PBT) to close H1 2021 at N4.3billion; Gross Earnings grew by 4.94per cent y-o-y to N39.82billion (H1 2020: N37.95billion). Net fee and commission income increased by 71.7per cent y-o-y to N5.40billion(H1 2020: N3.1 billion), due to 112.6 per cent increase in credit related fees, 151.5 per cent increase in management fees, 147.7per cent growth in fees on financial guarantees.
According to Mabawonku, “the key measure of success for us is growth in customers and customer activity – and we are glad that we are reporting strong growth here.” Total liabilities grew by 4.9 per cent to N953.9 billion in H1 2021 (H1 2020: N909.2 billion), driven by deposits from customers which grew by 0.5 percent to N808.8 billion in H1 2021 (FY 2020: N804.8 billion)Cost of funds declined to 5.3 per cent from 6.4 per cent in H1, 2020. NPL numbers remained below 5 per cent at 3.55 per cent while Capital Adequacy of 13.24per cent is above the regulatory minimum of 10 per cent.