Unity Bank Drives Retail Growth Aggressively, Earnings Grow to N27.5bn – Unity Bank Plc was strong in the first half of 2023, even though companies in Nigeria had to deal with a tough business climate and unexpected government policies.
In its unaudited financial records for the first half of the year, which it sent to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited over the weekend, the bank said that its gross earnings went up by 0.37 percent, from N27.4 billion in the first half of last year to N27.5 billion this year.
It was seen that a 10% rise in fees and income commissions, from N3.2 billion to N3.5 billion, helped the lender increase its income during the time period in question.
This was because of how popular the company’s online banking platforms were getting and how many new customers they were getting in the retail area.
As a result of this aggressive retail growth, customer savings went up by 2%, from N327.42 billion to N333.38 billion. This is because the bank offered a wide range of banking products that appealed to different parts of the retail market.
Also, Unity Bank’s strategy focus on growing and diversifying its income led to its foreign exchange (FX) income going up by 17%, from N204.4 million to N239.8 million.
But the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) strategy of FX liberalisation caused the exchange rate to change, which hurt the bank’s profit.
“Given the current FX reversal in the financial system, what we have is a market-driven effect that can be changed and is expected to come from the good economic results of government policies in the near future.
“However, the negative shareholders’ fund has gotten a lot better since N135 billion was added to it. This brought it down from (-ve) N275 billion at the end of the financial year in December 2022 to (-ve) N178 billion at the end of June 2023, after the FX revaluation loss in Q2/2023 was taken into account.
The Managing Director/CEO of Unity Bank, Mrs. Tomi Somefun, said, “We are, however, focused and have clear plans to finish our recapitalization programme very soon so that we can do business as expected in Nigeria’s fast-growing markets.”
The head of the bank said that the company is still hopeful that the government’s policy efforts will lead to a correction in the market. This is because the bank has stepped up short- and medium-term steps to create more assets and liabilities.
She said that the Bank is aggressively driving retail growth in every part of the market, expanding strategic partnerships, and growing commercial banking business to create new and sustainable income streams for the bank. The Bank is also paying enough attention to fast-paced process automation, cost and resource efficiency, targeted value chain relationships, and product marketing to improve value creation in the market.
The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio stayed low at below 3%, and the liquidity ratio was strong at over 45%.
Based on the study of the financial statements, experts think that Unity Bank is still on track, even though the market is going through a rough patch. This is because the bank has shown that it can handle changes in the past.