UBA Announces N142.58 Billion Post-tax Profit in Q1 2024

In the first quarter of 2024, United Bank for Africa's post-tax profit increased by 166% to N142.58 billion, driven primarily by a significant rise in interest income.

UBA's interest income increased from N191.88 billion in the same quarter of 2023 to N440.76 billion in Q1 2024, a 128% increase.

This was revealed in the interim consolidated financial statements filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Friday. They are unaudited and cover the period ending March 2024.

During the period under review, the bank's fees and commission income increased from N28.98bn to N62.17bn year over year.

Employee benefits rose to N66.31bn from N31.26bn, depreciation, and amortisation rose to N10.06bn from N6.67bn, and other operating expenses surged to N142.59bn from N69.38bn, indicating a 105.53 percent increase.

On its balance sheet, the financial group's total assets increased by N4.72tn, or 22.84 percent, in three months to N25.37tn from N20.65tn as of December 2023, while total liabilities increased to N22.75bn from N18.62bn.

Retained earnings rose from N919.87 billion in December 2023 to N1.06 trillion.  

UBA was involved in 18 fresh legal cases in the first three months of the year, bringing its portfolio to 1,667 (Dec.2023: 1,649).

The total amount claimed in the cases against the group was estimated at N996.63bn (Dec.2023: N987.25bn).

For the 2023 fiscal year, UBA's gross earnings increased by 143 percent, from N853.2bn to N2.08tn.

Back Story
United Bank of Africa (UBA), recently released its unaudited financial results for Q3 2023, which ended September 2023. Since then, the bank has once again experienced impressive growth in its performance metrics, adding to the success of the second quarter of 2023.

The bank has been on a positive trend all through this year. The first two quarters of the current fiscal year showed that the bank’s gross earnings settled at N1.309 trillion, which signifies a 115.2%  increase from the records of last year, which settled at N608 billion. Also, operating income increased by 146%, from N414 billion in September 2022 to N1.018 trillion in the year under consideration.

The bank’s financial report filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited showed a 262% rise in Profit before Tax (PBT) to settle at N502.01 billion compared to the N138.49 billion recorded at the end of Q3 2022. Profit after tax increased by 287.2% from N116 billion recorded a year earlier to N449.29 billion, rising above its annualised return on average equity for Q3 2023 at 131% to 44.37%.

The bank has maintained a robust balance sheet, with total assets rising to N16.24 trillion, representing a 49.5% rise from the N10.86 trillion recorded at the end of December 2022. The bank also benefited massively from its technology-led initiatives to improve customer experience in the past few years, with customer deposits rising to N11.63 trillion, representing a 48.6% rise from N7.8 trillion at the end of the last financial year.