TheCable

Unity Bank Plc says its assets base grew to N492.02 billion at the close of financial year which ended December 31, 2020.

Ebenezer Kolawole, executive director of Unity Bank, while speaking during an investor call attended by TheCable, on Tuesday, said the asset growth represents a 67.9 percent increase from N293.05 billion of total assets value recorded in 2019.

The bank also declared gross earnings of N42.71 billion during the period under review.

A statement by the bank said it improved its bottom line marginally as profit after tax (PAT) stood at N2.09 billion while profit before tax (PBT) closed at N2.22 billion.

It noted that the progress was recorded despite impact of COVID-19 which disrupted business activities across the world, including Nigeria.

The agric-focused lender said it also increased its customers’ deposit portfolio to N356.62 billion from N257.69 billion in the corresponding period of 2019, representing a 38.4 percent growth.

It noted that its net operating income rose to N25.46 billion from N23.21 billion recorded in 2019, while the net interest income recorded a jump, as it rose by 7.60 percent to N17.75 billion from N16.49 billion in the preceding year. Earnings per share closed at 17.85 Kobo.

“The Bank’s gross loans portfolio increased by 92.9% to N206.2 billion in December 2020 from N106.9 billion in December 2019. The Bank’s lending strategy was specially tailored to support the nation’s food agenda,” the statement read.

“This had the added advantage of improving food security across the country, providing employment to thousands of youths and entrepreneurs, contributing to the conservation of FX stocks and mitigating security challenges by ensuring adequate empowerment of citizens and deepening skills acquisition across the value chain.”

Commenting on the result, Tomi Somefun, Unity Bank’s managing director, said the results showed the bank’s resilience and its ability to innovate and focus on key balance sheet items.

“Consequently, for the year under review, the opportunities to significantly create more quality assets for the business, thought to have sustainable impact, informed part of choices made and we have seen some encouraging market uptake in this regard, apart from the benefits to the enterprise bottom-line that have also started trickling in,” she said.

“Other key performance indicators especially on the liability side of the business was equally not left out.

“We will latch on targeted strategies to deploy significant investment in technology in order to ride the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The bank is also looking to consolidate on the gains from its core business areas and niche in the agribusiness sector. The Bank has solidly financed over one million farmers over the past three years. These farmers cut across several primary crop production such as rice, maize, cotton, wheat, sorghum, etc coupled with their rich value chains, and we hope to continue to expand on this as we play our part in driving the country’s quest for self-sufficiency in food production.”