GTBank targets top 3 profitable banks in Africa, flags off Francophone expansion
GTBank Plc, Nigerian leading bank has set a target to become one of the top three most profitable banks in Africa by 2016.
- (1888PressRelease) April 18, 2012 - The bank which has been consistently rated as most profitable in Nigeria grew its profit after tax by 37.32 per cent in 2011 at N52.65 billion. It is approaching its African growth with the expansion in the Francophone region, starting with GTB Cote D'Ivoire this month.
The bank already has subsidiaries in Ghana, The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the UK.
Mr Segun Agbaje, Managing Director/CEO of the bank told journalists at a presentation on its 2011 result on Tuesday, that the bank's profitability was driven by a converted effort to improve efficiency in an increasingly competitive operating environment.
With 23.03 per cent capital adequacy ratio, he said the bank was “adequately capitalized for near term expansion opportunities that may arise.” The bank grew its loan book in 2011 by 20.64 per cent, compared with the previous year, while deposit also grew by 35.72 per cent to N1.03 trillion.
He said the bank was able to cut its non performing loans to 3.73 per cent in 2011 from 6.74 per cent, with N77.01 billion sold to AMCON. While Zenon loans accounted for N36.88 billion of the ones taken to AMCON, he said the bank had taken 50 per cent provisions for the controversial loans to Hi-Media, the operator of HiTV which is now under receivership.
He said GTBank “does not envisage any further sales to AMCON.”
On the problem of large crowd of people at GTBank across Nigeria, he said the bank was aiming to solve it with technology such as ATM, Mobile money, Internet banking among others. Already, he said the bank has 22 e-branches, which would be increased to 76 by the end of the year.
Currently, he said over N60 billion transactions were conducted through the bank's ATMs every month.
On the state of Nigerian banks, he believed that it was healthy, and that the provisions for bad debts by most banks were normal practice everywhere, as long as it's below 5 per cent.
With the trend of development in the Nigerian banking industry, he envisaged a resemblance of what is existing in South Africa where the industry is dominated by very few banks.
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