Business

FBN holdings to tackle Non-performing loans

Published

9 years ago

June 19, 2017

By Chioma Obinagwam

The Group Managing Director (GMD) of FBN Holdings Plc, Mr. Urum Eke has said that group is set to reduce its Non performing Loans (NPLs) by the second quarter of 2017.

He stated that the financial institution NPLs is constitutes of five major accounts, which includes Atlantic Energy.

Speaking at the ‘facts behind the figures’ event on The Nigerian Stock Exchange(NSE) at the weekend, said the financial institution’s goals entail reducing the NPLs to single nonperforming loans in two years; enhance revenue generation and improve on dividend distribution across all its subsidiaries.

He said: “when the Atlantic Energy account is resolved this year, all of $500million nonperforming loans will drop off. There are two to three others that are at level of resolution.”

“We are confident that we are going to resolve them. With these accounts, the holdings Nonperforming loans are taken care of and there is no fresh nonperforming loans in our books,” he continued.

He added that the group’s NPLs target for 2017 is less than 20 per cent with Returns on Average Equity greater than or equal to 10 per cent.

He said the holdings focus in the meantime, includes lending to the consumer, manufacturing and power.

He noted that the holding company is rebuilding to further enhance shareholders value in two years, from 2017 to 2019, stressing that subsidiaries are poised to improve on profitability.

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Eke further said that the group’s large network, trust and goodwill in the market convey a distinctive competitive advantage for the business.

He explained that the group is leveraging on existing mobile wallet based Agency Payment Scheme with a projecting 20,000 active agent locations by 2019.

He said: “FirstMobile/Online reached over N1 trillion transaction value and 19.7 million transactions last year and the financial institution projected outcome is 3.5 million users enrollments by 2019.”