The shareholders of Fidelity Bank Plc have unanimously endorsed the payment of a cash dividend of 22 kobo per share to all Shareholders whose names appear in the Register of Members at the close of business on April 16, 2021.
This translates to a dividend yield of 9.2%, making it the 4th most rewarding Bank to investors in the Nigerian Capital Market. The Bank disclosed this at the 33rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos over the weekend.
Shareholders who spoke at the event praised the Board of Directors and the management team for the 38.7 percent increase in total customer deposits, which rose from N1, 225.2 billion in 2019FY to N1.699.0billion and was driven by strong double-digit growth in both local and foreign currency deposits.
L-R: Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nneka Onyeali – Ikpe ; Chairman, Board of Directors, Fidelity Bank Plc, Mustapha Chike- Obi; Company Secretary, Fidelity Bank Plc, Ezinwa Unuigboje; Non- Executive Director, Fidelity Bank Plc, Alhaji Isa Inuwa at the 33rd Annual General Meeting 2020FY of Fidelity Bank in Lagos, recently.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fidelity Bank, Mustapha Chike-Obi, reassured shareholders at the AGM that the board and management of the bank would maintain the high corporate governance
standard which is synonymous with Fidelity Bank, and also ensure the bank continued in its growth trajectory in the years ahead.
“We will continue to strengthen our enterprise risk management capabilities to ensure the sustainability of our business, while modeling our governance practices to align with international best practice”, he said.
Fidelity Bank CEO, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, echoed the Chairman’s sentiments, stating that the bank’s financial performance for the period under review reflects the resilience of its business model in a challenging operating environment.
Onyeali-Ikpe said local currency deposits grew by 49.6 percent to N1, 400.8 billion and constitutes 82.5 percent of total customer deposits while foreign currency deposits grew by 3.3 percent to N298.2 billion and now accounts for 17.5 percent of total deposits.
L-R: Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nneka Onyeali – Ikpe ; Chairman, Board of Directors, Fidelity Bank Plc, Mustapha Chike Obi at the 33rd Annual General Meeting 2020FY 2 of Fidelity Bank in Lagos, recently.
“The bank’s retail banking push continued to deliver impressive results as total savings deposits increased by 54.2 percent to N424.4 billion, making it the 8th consecutive year of recording double-digit growth in savings deposits. Total savings deposits now account for about 25.0 percent of total deposits, an attestation of the Bank’s increasing market share in the retail market segment.” She noted.
Speaking on the strategy for the current financial year, the Fidelity bank CEO said growth objectives would be continued while new opportunities would be explored, “We will continue to focus on redesigning our systems and processes to enhance service delivery, deepen our cost optimization initiatives to reduce operating expenses, and enhance our overall risk monitoring capabilities to ensure both internal and external risks are identified and mitigated.”
“On the back of the evolving dynamics in the economy, we will continue to increase the adoption and migration of customers to our digital platforms and increase our retail banking market share through innovative products and services”, she added.
L-R: Non- Executive Director, Fidelity Bank Plc, Alhaji Isa Inuwa; Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nneka Onyeali – Ikpe; Chairman, Board of Directors, Fidelity Bank Plc, Mustapha Chike- Obi; Company Secretary, Fidelity Bank Plc, Ezinwa Unuigboje at the 33rd Annual General Meeting 2020 FYof Fidelity Bank in Lagos, recently.
The shareholders expressed their continued confidence in the Bank for its 2020 performance which saw a 50.9 percent increase in core operating profit to N44.9 billion. The share price also rallied 22.9 per cent, outperforming the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Index, which only gained 10.1 percent.
For his part, President, Association for the Advancement of the Rights of Nigeria Shareholders, Dr. Farouk Umar, commended the bank for posting encouraging results in 2020 despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. He appreciated the bank for paying dividend the same day of the Annual General Meeting unlike their peers in the industry that pay dividends a day after the AGM.
Also speaking, National Coordinator, Pragmatic Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Bisi Bakare, commended the bank for declaring dividend in spite of unfriendly economic environment and the COVID-19 pandemic challenges.
Fidelity Bank began the year on a positive note having recorded a strong financial performance in the first quarter of 2021, posting appreciable growth in profit for the period ended March 31, 2021.
Details of the unaudited results showed that its profit before tax (PBT) grew by 53.9 per cent from N6.6 billion in the corresponding period in 2020 to N10.1 billion in the period under review. Similarly, net revenue in the period increased by 13.4 per cent from N30.3 billion in the first quarter (Q1) 2020, to N34.4 billion at the end of March 2021. The bank also recorded growth in other performance indices.
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