Mallam Hassan Usman, CEO of Jaiz Bank Plc was at the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Wednesday to present the facts behind the bank’s recently released financial figures.
Speaking specifically on the financial statements for the period ended Q1 March 31st 2018, wherein Profit after tax dropped 28 percent, Hassan pointed that major political activities such as delay of the 2018 budget passage has affected the bank’s businesses.
“What we do is work with the real sector. Nigeria has not gotten a budget up till now, and the first quarter has gone. We have specific transactions that we target to do, these transactions are not financing in the conventional sense, they are financing the real sector, where we have to sell and make profit.
“This affects the dynamics of what we do from day to day and when the physical environment is affected we immediately get affected. 2016/2017 were years that were not so good for our customers and unlike conventional banking we don’t earn when our customers are not earning, because we cannot change them when they fail to play on time,” he said.
The Bank’s CEO is however optimistic as he noted: “These and many environmental issues affected the way we do business and the performance of the institution, but overall we are optimistic that things are going to pick up this year because the international market for goods in Nigeria is getting better. We are optimistic that overall that things will ease up by half year and at worst third quarter of the year.”
The company in the first quarter reported gross income of N1.57 billion for the period ended March 2018 compared to N1.54 billion reported for the period ended March 2017 and a profit after tax for the period ended March 2018 of N124.59 million compared to N173.13 million reported March 2017 representing a 28 percent decrease for the comparative period in 2017.
Jaiz Bank Plc also reported earnings per share of 0.5 kobo for the period ended March 2018 compared to 0.69 kobo reported for the period ended March 2017.
Explaining key features of Jaiz Bank’s recently unveiled five-year corporate strategy, Hassan said: “Specifically we will like to expand the business, which will also cost money to do. It affects the immediate profitability but we have to do that to become sustainability.
“As an imperative from our growth plan, we will like to work with the medium and small scale enterprises, which are the engine of growth in Nigeria to partner with them and develop better businesses and enhance the capacity of the people and therefore our earning capacity.”
Speaking on the recently signed $20 million agreement with the Islamic development bank to finance SMEs, Hassan said: “We concluded on most of the signing issues and agreement and we are looking towards disbursement. Very soon we will start to make disbursement for some of the selected customers of the bank that are going to benefit from this facility.”
