– As Directors’ Fees Climb 194% in 2024
June 22, (THEWILL) – Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc (SFHC) paid a total of N388 million to settle contravention penalties imposed on it by the regulatory authorities in FY 2024.
The figure represents a 1,238 per cent increase, compared to what it paid for the same offence in 2023.
The report also showed that SFHC directors earned a total of N653 million in 2024 as against N222 million in the previous year, representing a 194 percent increase in the review period.
A further study of the Group’s audited financial statements filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) last week, showed that the contravention penalties include N250 million in respect of ‘2024 AML/CFT/CPF examination’, ‘Mystery shopping and spot checks on cash disbursements’, and ‘Late rendition of regulatory return’.
Industry analysts stress that, irrespective of the sum, regulatory penalties constitute a negative impact on the shareholders’ assets at this time when the financial services industry is faced with numerous operating challenges.
They also argue that the onerous task of beefing up their capital base to comply with the March 2026 deadline prescribed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), demands that the banks husband their resources in the most efficient manner.
“No matter how small or insignificant, no bank should give room for a regulatory penalty at this time because banks are passing through a difficult operating environment. They also need all the resources to meet up their capital base to beat the recapitalisation deadline announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria last year. Every kobo matters,” said Macaulay Obot, a finance expert.
THEWILL recalls that on March 28, 2024, the CBN issued a directive to financially reshape the domestic money banks (DMBs), which spiked a theatre of competition among the operators.
In a direct memo, the CBN revised the capitalisation requirements, setting new benchmarks for banks with international operations at N500 billion; national licences, N200 billion and regional licences, N50 billion. This directive, a crucial step towards a stronger banking sector, initiated a time-sensitive two-year journey that started on April 1, 2024, and to end on March 31, 2026.
Going by the data available, commercial banks in the country would require a combined N3.894 trillion to meet the new baseline capital requirements. The capital raising would be from both domestic and international markets which most of the banks have already keyed into. Sterling Financial Holdings Plc will require N142.85 billion to attain the required financial status.
SFHC delivered strong financial and operational results in 2024, its first full year of operations since obtaining its final license in June 2023.
Key highlights include substantial growth in gross earnings, a successful private placement raising of N75 billion and the listing of the company’s shares on the Nigerian Exchange Limited in April 2023.
Gross Earnings rose to N337.19 billion from N221.77 billion in 2023 constituting a 54 percent increase, while Profit Before Income Tax grew by 102.1 percent to N45.86 billion against N22.69 billion recorded in the preceding year.
Similarly, Profit After Tax recorded a 102.4 percent growth, hitting N43.67 billion from N21.58 billion in 2023. Earnings Per Share (EPS) climbed to 151k from 75k in 2023.
The Group’s total assets rose by 65 percent to N3.54 trillion from N2.54 trillion in 2023 upon positive performance of the balance sheet components such as total loans and advances to customers, and customers’ deposits.
Based on the growth trajectory, the Group achieved a moderate Cost-to-Income Ratio growth of 183.35 percent, compared to 175.31 percent achieved in 2023. However, Loan-to-Funding Ratio declined to 43.83 percent from 48.61 percent recorded in the preceding period.
Sterling Bank, a major subsidiary of the group, is active in the move to upgrade its systems to cope with the wind of competition blowing across the industry. Its customers were among the first to experience disruptions when the bank began migrating its core system from T24 to SEABaaS, a new locally developed banking application. This migration at the outset caused multiple transaction failures, frustrating customers who were unable to use the bank’s services for days.
The upgrade, which commenced in August 2024, was completed in September 2024, thus earning Sterling Bank the reputation of having what was touted as the first indigenous core banking solution on the continent.
Despite its efforts to stay atop the industry’s modern digital banking space, the group recorded a marginal increase in electronic banking revenue from N8.11 billion in 2023 to N8.46 billion in the review period, constituting a 4.31 percent rise.
This places it among the lowest e-banking revenue earners in 2024.
A recent study of 10 selected money deposit banks by THEWILL showed that United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) came top in digital banking revenue. It raked in N284.7 billion during FY 2024 against N157.1 billion which it recorded in the previous year, translating to an 85.9 percent increase.
It was followed by Access Bank with a total digital transaction fee of N178.61 billion which constitutes a 75.6 percent increase against N101.62 billion in FY 2023.
Zenith Bank pooled N80.05 billion in e-banking revenue in FY 2024 against N51.8 billion it earned in the previous year which represents a 54.5 percent increase for the period.
First Bank e-banking transaction income increased to N77.01 billion in FY 2024 from N66.34 billion in the previous year, representing a jump of 16.08 percent during the period.
Guaranty Trust Bank posted a total digital transaction revenue of N56.56 billion which represents a 38.5 percent increase from N40.82 billion it achieved in the previous year — ranking fifth among the Tier-1 banks, also referred to as the FUGAZ group (First Bank, UBA, GTB, Access and Zenith Bank).
The reports showed that Stanbic IBTC Bank posted a total e-banking revenue of N63 billion which is 11.1 percent higher than 56.7 billion it generated in the previous period.
Others are Wema Bank and Fidelity Bank which posted N14.1 billion and N7.02 billion against N7.3 billion and 4.02 billion in FY 2023, which translated to 93.2 percent and 72.9 percent respectively.
FCMB’s digital revenue declined by 22.83 percent from N17.69 billion in FY 2023 to N13.65 billion in the review period.
Sterling Bank transitioned into a holding structure, Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc, in 2022. The transition involved restructuring the bank into a holding company with subsidiaries, including Sterling Bank Limited. The process was finalised with the listing of the holding company’s shares on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on April 6, 2023.
On stock performance, the current share price of Sterling Bank is N5.60. Sterling closed its last trading day (Friday, June 20, 2025) at N5.60 per share on the NGX, recording a 3.3 percent drop from its previous closing price of N5.79.
Sterling Bank is the 23rd most traded stock on the NGX over the past three months (Mar 14 – Jun 20, 2025), according to data by The Exchange. The stock has traded a total volume of 404 million shares—in 12,128 deals—valued at N2.25 billion over the period, with an average of 6.41 million traded shares per session. A volume high of 27.2 million was achieved on May 6th, and a low of 771,731 on March 21st, for the same period.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
