Africa’s global bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc., has announced remarkable performance in its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2022, recording impressive growth across all its major indices, replicating the commendable performance it achieved in the first two quarters of the current fiscal year.
Specifically, the bank’s Gross Earnings rose to US$1.4billion, up from US$1.13billion recorded in September 2021, while Operating Income also grew by 27.3 percent to close at US$951.9million as at September 2022, up from US$769.6million achieved a year earlier.
In its financial report filed with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), UBA reported a 12.3 percent rise in Profit Before Tax to close at US$318.4million compared to US$283.7million recorded at the end of the third quarter of 2021, while profit after tax also rose significantly by 10.9 percent to US$266.6million up from US$240.4million recorded a year earlier, thus sustaining its annualised return on average equity for Q3 2022 at 19.2 percent.
As always, UBA continues to maintain a very strong balance sheet, with Total Assets rising to US$21.2 billion, representing a 9.1 percent increase over the US$19.4billion recorded at the end of December 2021, just as the bank benefitted largely from its technology-led initiatives targetted at improving customer experience over the past few years, with Customer Deposits rising to US$16.06billion, representing a 10.4 percent rise, up from US$14.6billion at the end of the last financial year.
UBA shareholders’ funds remained very strong at US$1.85billion up from US$1.84billion recorded in December 2021, again reflecting a strong capacity for internal capital generation and growth.
Commenting on the result, UBA’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Oliver Alawuba, remarked that the group continues to show notable operating resilience amid significant headwinds in its presence markets amid heightened global risk environment, adding that its strong diversification model and unwavering focus on customer satisfaction continues to give the bank an edge over its peers in the industry.
He said: “We continue to reap the benefits of our diversification strategy and ‘Customer-1st’ philosophy, and build resilience in our operations across Africa and the rest of the world to support the mission of providing superior value to our stakeholders.
“This has translated into strong financial gains evident in growth in our customer deposits and net interest margin. In addition, we are strategically positioned to drive our market share in our operating countries, with the strong growth of our payments and transaction banking offerings,” Alawuba stated.
Executive Director, Finance & Risk Management, Ugo Nwaghodoh, said: “The group’s profitability increased by 12.3 percent to US$318.4million, with underlying growth in our key income lines and moderation in our cost of funds.
“We remain very cautious in risk asset creation as we defensively position our asset portfolios to minimise the impact of the heightened credit risk. Consequently, our NPL ratio remains within acceptable threshold at 3.2 percent.”
