By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Group Managing Director/CEO of United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr Kennedy Uzoka, has assured shareholders of the company of the company’s determination to improve on the impressive performance recorded by the financial institution in the 2019 financial year.
Last Friday, UBA released its audited 2019 earnings and the lender generated nearly N560 billion and over N110 billion as pre-tax profit, proposing a final dividend of 80 kobo per share.
This has been applauded by analysts and shareholders of the company.
Mr Uzoka, while commenting on the results, stated that, “The year 2019 was a very remarkable one for UBA given the adverse market developments.
“Nonetheless, we achieved sizable growth in balance sheet and earnings, even as we reposition the Bank for the future. Gross earnings crossed the N500 billion threshold to N559 billion, whilst total assets also crossed the N5 trillion mark for the first time to N5.6 trillion.”
According to him, “Our strategy remains centred around unparalleled service to our esteemed customers. Accordingly, we are making significant investments in a technology-driven transformation journey.”
“We have recorded early gains as shown in the 39 percent growth in electronic banking income to N38.8 billion in 2019 from N27.9 billion in 2018.
“Our businesses are gaining commendable share in their markets across regions in Africa, as we deepen the scale and scope of our operations,” he added.
Continuing, Mr Uzoka said, “I am indeed excited about the synergy we have built within the UBA Group and the significant progress we have made in our transformation drive.
“We have positioned the bank as a truly pan-African banking franchise, leveraging our operations in France, the UK and the USA, to deepen intra-African trade, and facilitate capital flows between Africa and the rest of the world.”
He emphasised that, “In 2020, we will pursue aggressive deepening of market share in all our subsidiaries, leveraging technology, rich human resources and our customer-first strategy to win in all the markets we operate, notwithstanding the challenges of our operating environment.”
On his part, the Group CFO of UBA, Mr Ugo Nwaghodoh, pointed out that bank was well-positioned to sustain impressive performance across key financial indices, adding that already, some of its previous investment in digital and technological transformation is already paying off significantly.
“We navigated the fragile yield environment in our largest market, to deliver an 8 percent growth in net interest income to N221.9 billion. This was bolstered by a 7.8 percent and 13.9 percent growth in interest income from corporate loans and investment securities respectively, as well as a 4.0 percent cost of funds driven by our stable retail deposits.
“Resulting from cost efficiency gains within the year, cost-to-income ratio moderated to 62.7 percent (64 percent in 2018), whilst profit for the year grew 13.3 percent, to N89.1 billion, translating to 16.2 percent return on average equity (RoAE),” Mr Nwaghodoh said.
UBA is a leading pan-African financial institution, offering diverse banking and payments services to more than 18 million customers, across 1,000 business offices and customer touch points in 20 African countries.
With presence in New York, London and Paris, the lender is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail, commercial and corporate banking, innovative cross-border payments and remittances, trade finance and ancillary banking services.
Dipo Olowookere 
Aduragbemi Omiyale