Business

Wema Bank doubles profitability, commences Rights Issuance in Q3

WEMA Bank Plc has announced an improved performance as Gross Earnings stood at N89.09 billion, a year-on-year (y/y) increase of 49 percent (H1 2022: N59.59 billion).

The bank recorded interest income of 53 percent y/y to N76.11 billion (H1 2022: N49.75 billion). Non-interest income increased by 32 percent y/y to N12.98 billion (H1 2022: N9.85 billion).

In its unaudited results for half year ended June 20, Wema Bank recorded profit before tax (PBT) of N12.05 billion, a y/y increase of 97 percent over the N6.13 billion reported in H1 2022.

Profit after tax (PAT) also increased y/y by 97 percent to N10.48 billion (N5.30 billion in H1 2022).

Further breakdown of the bank’s performance show that the bank grew its deposit year-to-date by 19 percent as of H1 2023 to N1,392.85 billion from N1,165.93 billion reported in financial year 2022. Loans and advances also grew by 20 percent to N627.01 billion in H1 2023 from N521.43 billion in FY, 2022.

Commenting on the result, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr Moruf Oseni, said, “Our H1 2023 results saw significant upsides with profit before and after tax growing strongly by about 97 percent.

“The management team at Wema Bank is focused on driving the execution of our current corporate strategy. Our embrace of technology is helping us deliver seamless best in class services while offering compelling value propositions to customers. Hence, we are seeing record breaking returns across board.”

Finally, we continue to see improvements in our corporate, commercial and retail businesses as evidenced by our strong loan growth.”

Oseni added that with the improved stability in the operating environment, the bank’s earlier approved Rights Issuance will be commencing in third quarter of 2023.

“It has been a good half year performance for Wema Bank with gross earnings growing by 49 percent year-on-year and earnings per share at 163.0 kobo. In addition, our cost-to-income ratio at 72.71 percent has witnessed significant improvement from the previous period.

“We have also succeeded in making Wema Bank an integral part of the fintech ecosystem in Nigeria with our ubiquitous fintech infrastructure support play,” he further stated.

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