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Diamond Bank Plc has reported a profit after tax of N3.498 billion for the year ended December 31, 2016.
The lender’s financial results filed with the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Monday showed that the 2016 after-tax profit was lower than the N5.656 billion posted in 2015 by 38 percent.
The bank’s state of health also showed that in the cause of the year’s transactions, the bank was fined by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) the sum of N31million for flouting banking regulations.
According to a statement on Monday, the bank said its capital adequacy ratio remained stable at 16.36 per cent, above the Central Bank of Nigeria’s required minimum, signposting its preparedness for profitable business expansion.
Its loans to customers increased by 30.3 per cent to N995.33 billion in 2016 from N763.63 billion in the previous year, while loans to other banks surged by 67.0 per cent to N100.3 billion from N60.1 billion.
The bank said despite the ravaging effect of the implementation of Treasury Single Account by the Federal Government and the CBN, customer deposits jumped to N1.4 trillion from N1.2 trillion in the previous year, representing 15.5 per cent increase and the strength of confidence in the its strategic outline.
It will be recalled that contrary to stakeholders and investors’ expectations, that Diamond Bank will be among the earliest banks to make their account books public in the year, the bank’s management had earlier sought for an extension of time for their results to be submitted to the Nigerian Stock Exchange NSE for verification.
Banks in the domestic economy has December 31st as their financial year end, and are required to submit their account books to the NSE for verification before they can hold their Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Some investors/stockbrokers who spoke to nationalwire on the Lagos floor of the Exchange, said the inability of the bank to make public its statement may not be far for huge loan exposure still seating in the accounts of the bank.
They also query that, the bank’s failure to bring its financials to the stock market may be read to mean that their account books is nothing to write home about, even as this may go a long way to affect investment decision on the stocks of the bank.
In its letter to the NSE on Monday, the bank said that its inability to make available its account books was “we have been notified that due to the stage of review of our accounts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), it is unlikely that this will be concluded in time for us to comply with the NSE and other regulatory rules guiding release of annual audited accounts”, it added.
It will be recall that the bank’s profit after tax in 2015 accounting year stood at N5.66 billion, down from N25.49 billion achieved in 2014, a decline of 77.8 per cent.
The bank’s net operating income stood at N104.64 billion compared with N127.38 billion in 2014. Its impairment charge stood at N55.17 billion against N44.18 billion recorded in 2014.
According to the 2015 report, the bank’s non-performing loans stood at 6.9 per cent from 5.1 per cent posted in 2014.
The report also said that the bank’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 16.3 per cent in contrast to 17. 5 per cent recorded in 2014, while net interest margin dropped to 6.1 per cent from 6.6 per cent in 2014.
However, the bank declared a gross earnings of N212.4 billion for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2016 as against N217.1 billion achieved in 2015.
The gross earnings represented a decline of 2.16 per cent than the figure in 2015.
