UBA released its unaudited financial results for Q1 2024 showing pre-tax profit grew by 154.74% year-on-year to 156.344 billion.
This outcome reflects the mixed nature of strengths and limitations stemming from macroeconomic challenges of heightened inflation, elevated interest rates, and foreign exchange volatility.
A further analysis of the results reveals that the Q1 impressive performance can be attributed to a combination of robust growth in interest income, primarily propelled by lending activities and investments in securities, particularly bonds.
The significant contribution of interest income from investment in securities, particularly bonds, highlights UBA’s diversified income streams.
Overall, the growth in interest income from both asset classes seems to be propelled by a combination of expansion and an increase in interest rates.
Notably, the group’s loans and advances, a key contributing factor, expanded by 39.49% to reach N7.294 trillion. Moreover, the benchmark interest rate experienced a substantial 600 basis point increase, climbing from 18.75% in Q4 2023 to 24.75% in Q1 2024.
In traditional financial analysis paradigms, such a surge in loan portfolio expansion might logically correlate with an uptick in the allowance for credit loss. However, the group’s allowance for credit loss declined by 28.19% to N7.139 billion.
Despite the notable expansion in loans and advances, the observed decrease in the allowance for credit loss suggests the effectiveness of UBA’s risk management frameworks. This could also signify an enhancement in the quality of UBA’s loan portfolio.
In addition to the overall impressive performance, this can be reassuring for investors, as it suggests that the bank is well-equipped to navigate potential credit risks and maintain asset quality even during challenging economic conditions.
However, UBA, like other banks, faces the daunting challenge of meeting the CBN’s new capital requirement. The bank still needs an additional N384 billion to fulfill the requirement.
The CBN’s new capital requirement has seemingly unsettled investors, leading to a downturn in the share prices of banking stocks.
UBA’s share price has experienced a marginal year-to-date (YtD) increase of 0.58%, which starkly contrasts with the remarkable 238% gain observed in 2023. UBA and the modest 9.16% gain in the first quarter of 2024.
