Stanbic IBTC Holdings’ profit jumps to N81bn

31 Jan Stanbic IBTC Holdings’ profit jumps to N81bn

Stanbic IBTC Holdings reported an increase in profit of more than two-fifths in 2022 according to its unaudited financial statements showed on Monday.

Shares in the lender rose by 0.15 per cent to N33.55 per unit in Lagos after the report was released.

Gross earnings came to N287.9 billion, up from the N206.4 billion posted for the preceding year, the bulk of that coming from interest income, particularly interest on loans and advances to customers.

The local unit of Africa’s biggest bank Standard Bank earned N91.4 billion in net fees and commission, 10.3 per cent higher than what it reported for the same period of 2021, and had N58.6 billion of that sum provided asset management fees coming from its pensions fund arm, Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers.

The subsidiary, one of the eight divisions under the group, is Nigeria’s biggest pension fund administrator with N3.5 trillion worth of assets under management.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings saw a 62.5 per cent slide in income from life insurance activities, but there was a tremendous improvement in trading revenue, which stood at N34.7 billion compared to the N13.3 billion reported the year before.

Other revenue totalled N1.2 billion, whereas a negative figure of –N566 million was posted for the 2021 financial year.

From its revenue, the financial institution set aside N10.3 billion to cover loans whose chances of being repaid have been hampered by recurrent defaults, whereas it earned N1.5 billion the previous year as a write-back on such loans.

“Operating conditions for (Nigerian) banks will weaken in 2023 due to high inflation, rising interest rates and US dollar shortages, in addition to continued regulatory intervention and the potential for disruption caused by the general election in February,” Fitch, a global rating agency, said last Wednesday.

“We expect impaired loans ratios to increase moderately as borrowers contend with the challenging macro conditions,” it added.

Pre-tax profit scaled up by more than a half to N100.6 billion, while profit for the period under review climbed to N81.1 billion from N57 billion, signalling a 42.3 per cent rise.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings is in talks with regulators to get the green light to set up a payments unit to be known as Stanbic IBTC Financial Services Limited.