First Bank of Nigeria Plc has recorded a 32 percent increase in revenues from N96.6 billion to N128.1 billion for the six months ended 30 September 2009.
The bank’s unaudited results presented at the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange shows deposits liabilities increase of 41 percent, from N851 billion to N1.2 trillion, while its total assets of N1.8 trillion increased by 14 percent to N2.0 trillion.
Its profit after tax indicated a drop from N23 billion to N2 billion (N30.0 billion September 2008), experienced a decrease of 89 percent on prior year while shareholders’ funds of N308 billion also fell by 8 percent from N334 billion in September 2008
Bisi Onasanya, group managing director of First Bank while commenting on the results said: “In line with our conservative nature, we have taken provision in excess of the N20.1 billion mandated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. We believe that subsequent recoveries of these loans will have positive impact on our performance in coming periods.”
Onasanya affirms that First Bank remains committed to capturing synergistic value through further diversification of the bank’s business model, supported by enhanced cost efficiencies and a strong capital base, saying that the bank strong capital adequacy ratio of 22 percent and stable funding base allows it to withstand short-term pressures without deviating from our long-term objectives.
Ola Oyelola, group chief financial officer, First Bank on his part believes that the bank’s conservative approach to provisioning against doubtful debts is the correct one, as evidenced by the successful conclusion of the Central Bank’s audit.
“We cannot deny the impact the global financial crisis continues to have on our customer base, and we have made further prudent provisions against the value of loans and investments on our balance sheet. This allows us to provide a transparent view of the bank’s assets at the end of the period, as well as look forward with confidence that the impact of the prevailing market environment has been largely recognised”, he said.
The bank’s operational highlights include the opening of 25 new branches, bringing its total number of branches, agencies and subsidiaries to 561 as at September 2009.
It recorded an expansion of its ATM network to 1,368 from 999 at the end of the March 2009.
First Bank improved its Wide Area Network infrastructure including optimizing cost of operations through VSAT replacement and deployment of WAN accelerators where replacement is not feasible and also establishment of FirstContact, a 24/7 customer interaction centre, to expand the range of the bank’s customer service channels, and enable the migration of substantial volume of requests and enquiries.
The Bank is in the final stages of the establishment of a centralized processing centre to serve as a large scale back-office for routine, non customer-facing processes to enable it reduce transactions processing costs, increase processing efficiency by leveraging on economies of scale and the concentration of core competency, achieve consistency and standardization in transactions processing.
Over the next 12 months, the bank plans to focus on solidifying its  leadership position within the Nigerian financial services industry by leveraging its scale advantages e.g. distribution network, balance sheet strength, etc. to serve customers better and more efficiently.

First Bank’s performance management strategy is designed to make it the premium employer brand and a talent magnet in the Nigerian banking industry as it has put in place robust performance management systems that will enable it repeatedly deliver against its corporate objectives and develop a performance culture among its workforce.