August 29, (THEWILL) – Zenith Bank has reported an after-tax profit of N106.1 billion for the half-year period ended June 2021. The figure is 2.2 percent higher than what it reported in the same period of last year. By this, Zenith becomes the first of the Big 5 banks to release its mid-year earnings scorecard.
According to the audited financials of the Tier 1 bank, the moderate profit rise derived from a 42.3 percent increase in net income on fees and commission, which helped to reduce the pressure arising from a N13 billion slump in interest and similar income.
The figures were achieved against a background of weaker gross earnings, which at N345.6 billion compares with the N346.1 billion recorded at half-year 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic which forced Nigerian banks to resort to restructuring the loans in their books.
“I don’t think that we can expect any dramatic increase in performance … from banks. For one, the performance wasn’t that bad in H1 last year, so I don’t see that they are coming from a very low base point. You also have the constraints on interest income, which is the key source of revenue for banks,” Timchang Gwatau, senior research analyst at Meristem Securities Limited, a broker and investment bank, was quoted as telling CNBC Africa last Friday.
Zenith Bank’s profit before tax was up 2.6 percent at N117.1 billion, just as earnings per share rose 2.4 per cent to N3.38. The bank has said it will pay shareholders an interim dividend of N0.30 per share totaling N9.4 billion for the period under review.
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.
