Yemisi Izuora
Sterling Bank Plc grew its bottom-line by 14.9 per cent to N9.2 billion in 2018, sustaining its upward growth trajectory.
Key extracts of the audited report and accounts of the bank for the year ended December 31, 2018 showed that profit after tax rose to N9.2 billion in 2018 as against N8 billion in 2017. Gross earnings had increased by 14 per cent from N133.4 billion to N152.2 billion.
The report showed that in line with the bank’s commitment to sectors that will create jobs, improve living standards and bring about economic growth for the country, Sterling Bank increased its financing efforts in the agriculture sector which accounted for about 10 per cent of its loan book. The bank also maintained a healthy capital and liquidity position at 13.3 per cent and 42.2 per cent respectively on account of additional tier 2 capital injection.
Chief Executive Officer, Sterling Bank Plc, Abubakar Suleiman, said the 2018 performance demonstrated the bank’s commitment to the race it set out on at the beginning of the year.
“We continued to identify more with our strategic pillars – agility, digitisation and specialisation – enabling us to set the stage for positive and sustainable growth across the business. Our investments in people and technology platforms drove significant traction in the retail and consumer segment, in line with our medium to long term goals,” Suleiman said.
Reflecting on key performance drivers during the financial year, Suleiman said that consumer loans were up 108.3 percent driven by SPECTA – Nigeria’s leading lending digital platform.
He added that mobile channel usage grew over 80 per cent following the launch of Sterling OnePay, an omni-channel mobile banking platform as transaction volumes doubled on the instant payment platform.
“We would maintain a more customer-centric approach to achieving growth and strive to scale our digital products. Specifically, we will further diversify our loan book by targeting 20 percent share to Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation – our HEART sectors,” Suleiman said.
According to him, Sterling Bank would increase access to loans for a wider customer base through other exciting variants of SPECTA and further decentralise the investment market through digital platforms, refocus its corporate and investment banking segment with emphasis on providing innovative solutions to key corporates and banking the value chain.
Sterling Bank was recently named the most Innovative Bank of the Year by the Central Bank (CBN) and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), has reported.