Union Bank Assures Stakeholders of Improved Profitability, Value Creation

The Chairman of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Cyril Odu, yesterday assured stakeholders that the bank would focus on disciplined cost management to improve the profitability and deliver value to all our stakeholders.

Odu, gave the assurance while speaking at the 50th annual general meeting (AGM) held in Lagos, noting that Union Bank has been positioned to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in the economy.

“And we remain optimistic about the future of the bank. We will execute our 2019-2021 strategic objectives – sweating our assets, digitising our bank, and positioning for the future - towards being Nigeria’s most reliable and trusted banking partner. “We will focus on embedding disciplined cost management as well as mining synergies across business segments and functions to improve the profitability of our business and deliver value to all our stakeholders – shareholders, customers, business partners’ and employees,” he said.

Highlighting some of the some major achievements of the bank in 2018, the chairman said Union Bank strengthened retail and transaction banking offerings, launched the first Local Letter of Credit to support local trade and launch of the inaugural N13.5 billion bond issue and the adopted the robotic process automation (RPA) technology.

Speaking on the financial performance in 2018, Odu said profit before tax grew by 33 per cent to N18.5 billion from N13.9 billion in 2017.

“Customer deposits also went up by seven percent to N857.6 billion compared to N802.4 billion in 2017, continuing its upward trajectory since 2016, an indication of consumers’ growing confidence in the brand. As a result of aggressive focus on recoveries, the bank’s non-performing loan(NPL) ratio declined to 8.1 per cent in December 2018 from 20.8 per cent as at December 2017. In addition, the return on tangible equity (ROTE) improved to 9.6 per cent from 6.2 per cent in 2017,”

Also speaking on the group’s performance for 2018 and plans for 2019, the Chief Executive Officer, Emeka Emuwa said: “Our priorities in 2018 were three pronged: enhancing our productivity across board; tightening up our loan portfolio (especially resolving key large exposures which drove NPLs up significantly at the end of 2017); and optimising the bank’s capital and funding base. I am pleased to report that we made significant strides in each focus area. Notwithstanding a depressed economic environment and a challenging operating landscape, our efforts to optimise productivity delivered results.”