Fidelity Bank delivers stellar results
Fidelity Bank has defied the challenging business environment to post an impressive performance for last year, lifting its profit after tax by 74.41 per cent to GH¢145.43 million from GH¢83.38 million in 2014.
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The bank’s profit before adjusting for taxes and statutory payments increased by 83 per cent to GH¢206.8 million from GH¢112.5 million in 2014.
The Managing Director of the bank, Mr Edward Effah, who announced the figures at the bank’s annual general meeting in Accra, said the growth had been supported by cheaper sources of funds it mobilised through customer deposits.
Deposits grew by 69 per cent to GH¢3 billion from GH¢1.78 billion in 2014, reflecting the large growth in the bank’s customer base from 621,829 to a little over a million customers. The growing customer base is also because of the acquisition of Procredit and its integration into the Fidelity Group.
The bank’s balance sheet consequently increased in size to GH¢4.09 billion in 2015, supported mainly by deposits from the banks’ deposit mobilisation campaigns.
Mr Effah also touted another 69 per cent growth in operating income to GH¢552 million from the 2014 figure of GH¢326 million, which resulted in net interest income of GH¢370 million, a remarkable 98 per cent rise over the GH¢186 million of 2014.
Events during the year
The managing director said last year was spent implementing some initiatives which were aimed at streamlining the 10-year-old bank’s internal processes; enhancing customer experience and strengthening its information technology platforms to support the increased size of its business.
“In 2015, in line with our quest to build a world class bank, we entered into an outsourcing arrangement with IBM to provide us with tools to support our IT infrastructure and operations to enable us deliver a more efficient service to our fast growing customer base,” Mr Effah said.
He said the partnership had allowed the bank to offer more convenient banking options which would lead it to gain competitive advantage in the medium term.
Fidelity Bank also started a customer service initiative to differentiate itself from competition, a rollout the managing director said was progressing steadily to make the bank more customer-centric.
Outlook
Mr Effah said the economic growth this year would depend significantly on how the government was able to maintain a fiscal discipline in an election year, “while being able to manage near-term vulnerabilities to energy/power challenges, commodity price and international business climate.”
The Board Chairman, Mr William Panford Bray, said in spite of a business environment of high interest and exchange rates, the bank weathered the storm to deliver a stellar performance to maintain its status as a top-tier bank.
The chairman, who retires from the board later in the year, thanked shareholders, board and management for their support in a moving message that received thunderous applause.