Fidelity Bank has announced that its gross earnings rose by 22.1 percent from N70.3 billion in the first half of 2016 to N85.8 billion for the same period in 2017. This growth, according to the bank, was driven by a 27.8 percent increase in interest income and a 0.7 percent growth in net fee income to N11.2 billion. The bank’s profits grew by 66.7 percent from N6.1 billion in the first half of 2016 to N10.2 billion in 2017.

Fidelity Bank CEO, Nnamdi Okonkwo, attributed the growth in earnings and profits to “the disciplined execution of the bank’s medium term strategy which focused on deepening its market share in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Retail and Digital banking business segments.”

“Our balance sheet optimization initiatives continued to deliver improved results as Net Interest Margin (NIM) increased by 7.4 percent in H1 2017 from 6.4 percent (2016FY),” he said, “just as the growth in the yield on our earning assets outpaced the increase in funding costs. The process improvement and digital banking initiatives in the period helped to optimize our cost profile as total expenses declined by 1.8 percent (despite the high inflationary environment) leading to a reduction in our Cost to Income Ratio (CIR) to 67.3 percent.”

The bank’s retail strategy also led to improved results in H1 2017 as savings deposits increased by 3.9 percent to N161.1 billion with around 30 percent of its customers now enrolled on its mobile (*770#) and internet banking platforms.

Other key performance indices such as Net Interest Margin saw an increase of 7.4 percent, Cost Income Ratio grew 67.3 percent, and Capital Adequacy grew 18.4 percent.

In the 2017 KPMG Banking Industry Customer Satisfaction Survey, Fidelity Bank was rated as one of the top 4 banks in the retail segment.