First Bank Records N75.7bn Profit In 9 Months

First Bank of Nigerian Plc has posted a profit before tax of N75.7 billion in its unaudited IFRS compliant results for the nine months ended September 2012.
This was against N51.2 billion recorded in comparable period of 2011, representing a rise of 48.4 pe rcent year-on-year, driven by moderate revenue and operating expenses growth, coupled with lower impairment charges.
The performance translated into annualised after tax return on equity of 22.1 per cent  in contrast to 15.5 per cent posted in 2011.
With a capital adequacy ratio of 23.8 per cent, the bank’s business remains well capitalised, with an enhanced focus on capital efficiency in the coming periods in order to optimise returns to shareholders.
In a release made available to LEADERSHIP by the bank’s management, the financial institution also recorded a 19 per cent growth in gross earnings  making N267.7 billion from N225.0 billion in 2011, while operating income grew from N193.5 billion the preceding year to N222.7 billion representing an increase of 15  per cent.
The bank’s year-to-date, deposits grew by 18.2 per cent to N2.3 trillion, and up 4.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter across all deposit types, with over 80 per cent of total deposits in the low-cost segment.
The Group Managing Director of FirstBank, Mr. Bisi Onasanya, commenting on the result said “within the context of tighter liquidity, high interest rates and heightened security concerns, the third quarter was a more challenging one for our customers, and by extension, for us as partners. However, in spite of this, I am pleased to report that across all major lines of our business, we have maintained the improving trend witnessed in the first half of the year. Benefitting from our distribution strategy, innovative product development, market reach and responsiveness to our customers’ needs, we sustained our predominantly low-cost deposit mix, achieving overall deposit growth of 18 per cent year-to-date. Despite the continuation of a high interest rate environment, funding costs remained broadly stable quarter-on-quarter.”
Onasanya noted that the bank has continued to build on gains in streamlining and increasing the overall efficiency of its business.
“Over the nine-month period under review, we have seen further decline in our cost to serve, as volume growth outstripped associated expenses. We are optimistic about the prospects of our business, as we continuously take advantage of growth opportunities,” he said.
Onasanya noted that maintaining a customer centric approach was  critical to FirstBank and also key to the sustainability of its business.
“Over the course of the year, we developed new products and enhanced the competitiveness of existing product features, optimising the use of existing channels as well as introducing additional income earning product and service offerings. These initiatives ultimately improved the value proposition to our customers. In the third quarter, the focus was to increase customer awareness of products and drive uptake across all segments, thus driving some of the observed top line growth,” he said.