By Dipo Olowookere
The board of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc has proposed to pay shareholders of the company a dividend for the year ended December 31, 2019.
This is the first time the financial institution is intending to pay cash reward to its shareholders since 2008, when there was a global crash in the financial market.
Business Post reports that subject to shareholders’ approval, the board of directors of Union Bank intends to pay a dividend of 25 kobo per share for the 2019 financial year.
Today, the company filed its 2019 earnings to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and details showed that the profit before tax went up by 33 percent to N24.7 billion from N18.7 billion in the previous fiscal year.
The tier-two lender also grew is gross earnings by 14 percent to N159.9 billion from N140.1 billion in FY 2018, majorly driven by an increase in earning assets.
In the year under review, the interest income went up by 11 percent to N116.5 billion from N104.8 billion in FY2018, while the net interest income before impairment increased by one percent to N51.7 billion from N50.9 billion in FY2018.
In addition, the non-interest income rose by 23 percent to N43.3 billion from N35.3 billion in the previous year and this was influenced by growth in fees and commission income as well as recoveries.
Union Bank disclosed in the financial statements that its net operating income went up by 6 percent to N95.5 billion from N89.7 billion in FY2018, while operating expenses was trimmed to 0.4 percent to N70.8 billion from N71 billion in FY2018 as a result of the management’s cost optimisation programme.
It was observed that gross loans increased by 20 percent to N595.3 billion from N496.8 billion in 2018 in line with the lender’s drive to create quality risk assets across key economic segments of opportunity.
Reflecting the strength of the brand in a very competitive environment for deposits, the customer deposits increased by 5 percent to N886.3 billion from N844.4 billion in 2018.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Aduragbemi Omiyale