Sterling Bank Plc – a full service national commercial bank releases its unaudited results for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.
Financial performance highlights
- Sterling Bank’s gross earnings contracted to N31.0 billion primarily due to an 11.0% dip in interest income. This was however moderated by a 27% growth in non-interest revenue.
- The bank recorded a 15.6% decline in interest expense. This delivered an 80 bps drop in the cost of funds as the yield on earning assets declined by 210bps.
- Consequently, the net interest margin stood at 7.2%.
- Moderated operating expense further by 4.5% driven by the reduction in administrative and depreciation expenses as we continued to optimize our investments across the board.
- Customer deposits grew by 9.3% while maintaining a healthy deposit mix of 70.5% in low-cost funding.
- Loans & advances increased by 6.0% YTD to N632.5 billion as the cost of risk increased marginally by 10 bps to 0.9%. NPL ratio remained stable at 1.9%.
- Overall the Bank grew its balance sheet by 7.3% to N1.39 trillion and delivered a profit after tax of N2.40 billion in the first quarter of the year
Other non-financials highlights
Sterling Bank’s digital commodity exchange platform, SABEX is live. This platform is designed to facilitate the exchange of agro-commodities by building an ecosystem of players in the agricultural space
Chief Executive’s Remarks
“During the quarter, the campaign to vaccinate the global population against COVID-19 gained ground, bolstering consumer and investor confidence. At the macro level, treasury yields, and oil prices retraced towards their historical averages, contributing to reserves accretion and easing the pressure in the foreign exchange markets.
Riding on the improved operating environment, the bank recorded year-on-year double-digit growth in profit after tax in the first quarter, aided by a 9.3% rise in customer deposits and a 15.6% decline in funding cost.
In furtherance of our transformation agenda, we formally launched our digital commodity marketplace, SABEX. This is a product of three years of experimentation and extensive consultation with all key stakeholders and an important component of our strategy to use technology to improve productivity for players across the HEART sectors.
Overall, we closed with a profit after tax of N2.40 billion in the first quarter of the year, a 16% improvement on the corresponding period in 2020.”