FBN Holdings Plc recently announced its audited results for the financial year ended 31 December 2021.
Highlighting revenue and profitability, the Group delivered a stellar performance growing gross revenue by 28.2% to ₦757.3 billion and profit before tax by 99.1% to ₦166.7 billion.
The 30.0% growth in loans and advances to ₦2.9 trillion and 16.2% growth in total asset to ₦8.9 trillion reaffirms our commitment to drive revenue and profitability as we complete the balance sheet clean-up.
Commenting on the results, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, Chief Executive Officer of FirstBank Group said:
“Following years of strategic restructuring of the Bank’s balance sheet and operations, the Commercial Banking business is beginning to transition into a sustained growth phase delivering performance commensurate to the size of our business and capabilities of our people. Profit before tax is up 77.9%, gross earnings 30.3%, total assets 15.9% and customer deposits up 19.5%.
Gross earnings grew by 28.2% to ₦757.3 billion (Dec 2020: ₦590.7 billion). Interest income remained challenged given the moderated interest rate environment negatively impacting yields; as a result, interest income declined 4.1% to ₦369.0 billion (Dec 2020: ₦384.8 billion).
In 2021, FBNH operated in a challenging operating environment that was pressured by high inflation and currency devaluation, the effect of which increased operating expenses by 14.2% to ₦334.2 billion (Dec 2020: ₦292.5 billion). However, this 14.2% is below the inflation level (Dec 2020: 15.6%) whilst regulatory cost also rose during the period, up 23.2% y-o-y.
Despite the inflationary push factors, operating income grew 35.5% to ₦592.8 billion (Dec 2020: ₦437.6 billion), resulting in an improvement in cost to income ratio to 56.4% (Dec 2020: 66.8%).
Going forward, we will sustain our focus towards further improving efficiency by containing cost and increasing revenue.
