Banking Briefs
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FIRST City Monument Bank, FCMB, Group Plc has said that 2016 would be characterised by growth in retail business, stabilisation of wholesale banking revenues and increased focus on cost efficiencies. It also said its retail banking business, which is driven by FCMB Limited, has continued to show greater resilience and earnings momentum over the years.
Peter Obaseki, managing director of the bank, who made the observations, said the FCMB Group would soon announce the completion of the banking subsidiary’s interim audit, which would pave way for the release of the 2015 third quarter earnings of the group. According to Obaseki, the 2015 third quarter earnings as at September 2015 would be materially below the earnings of the same period in 2014.
The decrease, he said would be due to spike in impairments, particularly in the energy sector and the significant reduction in trade finance-related revenues due to foreign exchange illiquidity. The trend, Obaseki said, would continue in the fourth quarter of 2015 and largely emanating from wholesale banking activities. “We will increase focus on cost efficiencies in order to restore earnings levels,” he said.
On his part, Ladi Balogun, group managing director/chief executive officer of the bank, said: “We will continue to do the things we are doing well, driving low cost deposit growth, in order to bring down the cost of funds, through increased acquisition and collections. We will also continue to raise our performance in customer service by building a vibrant, credible and relevant banking brand that everyone wants to bank with. Overall, we are confident this progress and momentum will be sustained, as we continue to grow our market share through service excellence while improving our efficiency ratios.”
— Feb 8, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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