Fidelity Bank’s Half-year Profit Soars 67% on SME, Retail Strategy

Nigerian lender, Fidelity Bank has reported a strong financial performance in the first half of 2017, posting impressive growth in profits, gross earnings and other indices for the six months period ended June 30, 2017.

Details of the audited results, released on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday showed that gross earnings rose by 22.1 percent from N70.3 billion in H1 2016 to N85.8 billion for the corresponding period in 2017.

The growth in gross earnings was driven primarily by a 27.8 per cent increase in interest income and a 0.7 per cent growth in net fee income to N11.2 billion.

Similarly, the bank’s profit before tax (PBT) surged by 66.7 per cent from N6.1 billion in 2016 to N10.2 billion, just as it recorded improvement in other key performance indices such as its net interest margin of 7.4 per cent, cost to income ratio at 67.3 per cent and capital adequacy ratio of 18.4 per cent in the period under review.

Fidelity Bank CEO, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo attributed the double digit growth in earnings and profit to the disciplined execution of the bank’s medium-term strategy which focused on deepening its market share in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), retail and digital banking business segments.

“Our balance sheet optimisation initiatives continued to deliver improved results as net interest margin (NIM) increased by 7.4 per