Nigerian lender Guaranty Trust Bank has released its audited financial results for the half year ended June 30, 2020 to the Nigerian and London Stock Exchanges.
In the bank’s half year result, GTBank’s loan book grew by 8.1 per cent to ₦1.624 trillion in June 2020 from ₦1.502 trillion recorded in December 2019.
The bank’s customer deposits increased by 18.5 per cent to ₦3.001 trillion from ₦2.533trillion in December 2019 but there was a fall in the bank’s pre-tax profits, which dropped 5.2 per cent from ₦115.8 billion in 2019 to ₦ 109.7billion.
The bank closed the half year with with total assets of ₦4.511 trillion and shareholders’ funds of ₦720.9 billion. In terms of asset quality, non-performing loan ratio and cost of risk closed at 6.8 per cent and 0.4 per cent in June 2020 from 6.5 per cent and 0.3 per cent in December 2019 respectively. The bank is proposing an interim dividend of 30 kobo per ordinary share of 50 kobo each for period ended June 30, 2020.
Guaranty Trust Bank’s chief executive Segun Agbaje said: “These are undoubtedly tough and trying times for people, businesses and economies the world over. Our financial performance in the first half of the year reflects the quality of our past decisions which have broadened our earnings and strategically positioned us to thrive, thus far, through the current global health and economic crises. Underpinning this financial performance is our commitment to being there for our customers and the communities we serve, and over the past six months we have lent the full weight of our franchise to safeguarding lives and livelihoods of our staff and customers by leading from the front in the fight to curtail the Covid-19 outbreak and offering grace periods on loans to our small business customers.
Going forward, our focus is not just to survive this pandemic, but to thrive beyond it. That is why we are going ahead with our plans to re-imagine how we create value for all our stakeholders. We know that making financial services work for customers goes beyond banking, and in line with our long-term strategy, we will seek to create and drive innovative financial solutions that go beyond banking.”