Nigeria’s tier-one lender, First Bank Plc, grew its after-tax profit for the 2018 financial year by 58.2 percent to N59.67 billion from N37.71 billion recorded a year earlier, making the biggest profit growth recorded by any Nigerian tier-one lender.
Pre-tax profit rose 19.8 percent to N65.29 billion in 2018 fromN54.52 billion recorded a year, while operating profit grew by 20.7 percent to N65.27 billion from N54.1 billion.
As a result, the Directors of the bank recommended a dividend payment of 26 kobo per share for the year.
First Bank’s interest income fell 7.5 percent to N434.41 billion from N469.59 billion, while interest expense surged 8.8 percent to N150.2 billion in 2018 compared with N138.1 billion paid as interest in the previous year. That caused the lender’s net interest income to slump by 14 percent to N284.17 billion.
OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN
