Wema Bank Plc., Nigeria’s leading innovative bank, held its Annual General Meeting on Monday, 18 May 2020 to announce the growth of the bank in the past year and enable stakeholders to receive their dividend.
Coming several days after the bank’s 75th anniversary celebration, the meeting availed the investment community an opportunity to gain insight into the performance of the bank in the 2019 financial year.
The AGM, which held in proxy, in compliance with the guidelines of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), was moderated by the Chairman of the bank, Mr Babatunde Kasali with a few shareholders and members of the bank’s board and executives in attendance. Others joined remotely via live streaming.
Shareholder group leaders commended the bank for attaining 75 years in service, 3 years of digital banking with ALAT and also applauded the Board and Management of the bank for the 2019 performance.
For the year under review, Wema Bank announced a gross earnings of N94.89 billion which was a 32.65 per cent increase from the previous year.
The bank’s Profit After Tax (PAT) grew by 56.16 per cent to N5.2 billion while Profit Before Tax (PBT) stood at 40.83 per cent year-on-year to N6.76 billion in 2019, up from N4.8 billion in 2018. The bank also reported an increase in Customer Deposits by 56.35 per cent in the year under review, to N577.28 billion.
MD/CEO, Mr Ademola Adebise accredited the performance to the bank’s Double in two strategy which is targeted at increasing bottomline while reducing cost. He added that the increase in customer deposits was as a result of the aggressive marketing campaigns around the bank’s digital platform, ALAT.
The shareholders in attendance unanimously endorsed the payment of four kobo per share translating as a dividend, which translates to an of eight per cent from 2018.
In his remarks, Mr. Adebise assured the shareholders of continuous growth for the bank. He noted that “despite the current challenges brought on by the global pandemic, the underlining strength of Bank, the quality of our assets and our position as the parent to ALAT, the first-ever digital bank in Nigeria has given us the competitive advantage to continue to deliver excellent banking services to our customers and gain the confidence of our shareholders