By Dipo Olowookere
Tier-1 Nigerian lender, Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) Plc has announced a pre-tax profit of N109.7 billion for the first half of 2020.
The company revealed this information in its financial statements for the period ended June 30, 2020, released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday.
A brief analysis of the results by Business Post showed that the profit before tax in the period under review was, however, lower than what was achieved in the same period of last year, N115.8 billion and this can be attributed to higher operating expenses and lower net fee and commission income.
Also, the profit after tax reduced to N94.3 billion in the first six months of this year from N99.1 billion in the same period of 2019, while the earnings per share went down to N3.32 from N3.50 over the comparative periods.
However, a look at the top line of the results indicated an improvement in the gross earnings for the period, N225.1 billion in H1 2020 versus N221.9 billion in H1 2019.
A further breakdown showed that the interest income rose to N150.5 billion from N146.5 billion, while the interest expense reduced to N26.1 billion from N32.6 billion, with the net interest income at N127.6 billion in contrast to N116.4 billion in the first half of 2019.
Also, the net interest income after loan impairment charges stood at N120.9 billion as of June 30, 2020, compared with N114.2 billion as of June 30, 2019.
However, the fee and commission income was down to N24.7 billion from N35.4 billion, while the fee and commission expense increased to N2.4 billion from N1.5 billion, with the net fee and commission income reducing to N22.3 billion from N33.8 billion.
In the period under review, the bank said its personnel expenses slightly jumped to N18.8 billion from N18.6 billion as a result of an increase in the wages and salaries, which gulped N16.7 billion in H1 2020 versus N16.2 billion in H1 2019.
Also, other operating expenses were higher in the period under consideration when compared with the same period of last year, N49.6 billion versus N39.4 billion and the reason for this was because of higher finance costs, AMCON expenses, deposit insurance premium, advert, promotion and corporate gifts, administrative expense, Communications and sponsorship-related expense, and customer service-related costs.
Business Post reports that to reward its shareholders, the board of GTBank has proposed the payment of 30 kobo per share as an interim dividend.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Aduragbemi Omiyale