By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The management of Sterling Bank Plc, a mid-tier financial institution in Nigeria, has promised to deliver superior returns to its shareholders.
The lender explained that it hopes to achieve this goal by managing its risk, balance sheet and capital.
Speaking at the Sterling Bank Facts Behind the Figures on Tuesday at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos, the bank’s Executive Director in charge of Operations and Services, Mr Yemi Odubiyi, said parts of the strategic initiatives to be deployed include creating a learning organisation to optimise productivity as well as operations and technology to drive better control, manage costs, complexity and risk.
According to him, these are expected to enable the bank to deliver excellent customer service and drive efficiency and sales through robust digital and payments capability.
He further disclosed that Sterling Bank intends to become a consumer banking franchise of choice for Nigerians through the provision of customer-centric and disruptive solutions such as Farepay, Specta, Switch, Snapcash, Social Lender, Saf Retail and i-invest, among other products that are changing the ways they access financial services.
He noted that the bank of the future must understand the consumer of the future and address their needs, adding that the bank will adopt agile methodology and journey thinking to improve speed to market and the customer’s experience.
On his part, the chief executive of Sterling Bank, Mr Abubakar Suleiman, stated that the financial institution plans to be a global brand in the financial sector.
He said with the 2017-2021 mid-term strategy, the bank plans to grow market share of deposits to five percent, diversify its retail funding base, record non-performing loans below its peer group average as well as Return on Average Equity (ROAE) above peer group average.
He added that the bank is also looking to achieve diversified income streams with top quartile position in all its operating areas, double digit revenue growth on yearly basis and reduce cost of funds to less than five percent.
According to him, Sterling Bank will focus on five key sectors to tap revenue from. These sector, he said, are health, education, agriculture, renewable energy and transportation.
Mr Suleiman also reiterated the bank’s commitment to its primary role of financial intermediation through intervention in sectors that will create jobs, improve living standard and bring about economic growth for the country.
He assured that the bank would continue to operate a fully sustainable business model with institutionalized processes that would outlive the stewardship of current owners and managers.
In the 2017 financial year, Sterling Bank recorded considerable growths in key performance indices as well as in the first quarter of 2018.
Key extracts of the audited report and accounts for the year ended December 31, 2017 showed that Sterling Bank reported a profit after tax of N8.5 billion in 2017 as against N5.2 billion in 2016, representing an increase of 65 per cent. Gross earnings increased by 19.8 per cent to N133.5 billion in 2017 compared with N111.4 billion in 2016. The bank sustained the upwardly performance with 65.2 per cent growth in profit in the first quarter ended March 31, 2018.
