UBA’s nine-month profit jumps 17%

United Bank for Africa (UBA) reported a 16.9 per cent jump in net profit to N525.3 billion in the first nine months of the year, according to its latest earnings report issued on Monday.

The chunk of revenue was provided by interest income, which accelerated by 170 per cent to N1.8 trillion on the back of a series of interest rate increases by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), aimed at curtailing sticky inflation in Nigeria.

The CBN’s monetary policy committee has raised the benchmark rate by 15.8 per cent since May 2022 and by 8.5 per cent this year in a bid to slow down galloping price levels that have triggered a cost-of-living crisis in Africa’s most populous nation.

That has helped lenders to raise borrowing costs, enabling them to post record revenues and profits.

Net interest income for UBA in the period under review climbed to N1.1 trillion from N443.1 trillion a year earlier.

Fees and commission income, another major revenue source for the pan-African lender, more than doubled to N392.8 billion, helped by a sharp surge in e-banking income as well as commissions on transactional services.

Net trading and foreign exchange income decelerated by 59.5 per cent after the bank incurred a net fair value loss on derivatives of N243.4 billion compared to a gain of N340 billion in the same period last year.

UBA’s provision for problem loans fell 14.6 per cent in a mark of improved credit quality within the period.

Total operating expenses soared by 119 per cent to N812.2 billion driven by employees expenses and fuel, repairs & maintenance.

Profit before income tax was up by 20.2 per cent, while profit after tax rose to N525.3 billion from N449.3 billion.

Total assets for the group, which is now Nigeria’s biggest lender after Access Holdings, grew by more than half to N31.8 trillion.

The bank, which operates in 20 markets within Africa, recorded almost a threefold increase in exchange differences on translation of foreign operations.

That helped its total comprehensive income for the period to expand to N1.6 trillion from N886.8 billion a year earlier.

The stock has shed 1 per cent this year, underperforming the NGX Banking Index – the index that tracks the performance of the most capitalised and liquid stocks in the banking sector – which has yielded 3.3 per cent.