United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has released its audited financial results for 2022, showing impressive performance across major indices and with historic profit.
The 2022 financials, filed by the Bank at Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGx), showed that gross earnings rose significantly to $1.9 billion from $1.6 billion recorded at the end of the 2021 financial year, representing a strong 22.2 per cent growth.
Total assets rose remarkably by 21.6 per cent, crossing the $20billion mark, to close at $23.6billion in December 2022; up from $19.4 billion in 2021.
This is a very significant achievement and milestone in the history of the powerhouse financial institution.
Despite the highly challenging global economic and business environment, UBA recorded a laudable profit before tax, with a 23.5 per cent growth, to close the year under review at $446.4 million, rising from $361.5 million recorded at the end of the 2021 financial year.
Profit after tax grew by 35.1 per cent to $378 million in 2022, compared to $280.3 million recorded the year before.
Consequently, UBA Group Shareholders’ Funds rose to $2 billion as of December 2022, achieving an impressive growth of 5.3 per cent compared to the prior year.
In the year under consideration, UBA Group’s cost-to-income ratio dropped to 59.1 per cent, from over 62 per cent in the prior year, pointing to the Group’s improvement in efficiency.
The Bank proposed a final dividend of 0.2 cents for every ordinary share of 0.11 cents for the financial year ending December 31, 2022.
Challenging Operating Environment
Commenting on the result, the Group Managing Director/CEO, Oliver Alawuba, noted that notwithstanding the tight and challenging operating environment, UBA continued to deliver significant performance.
“The Group delivered record headline earnings (+22.2 per cent) and profitability (+35.1 per cent) amid significant headwinds in markets where we are present and a heightened global risk environment.
“Our record earnings, growth, and robust capital levels supported higher returns for the shareholders. The Group is on course to achieve its strategic goals, and we are confident we will deliver our targets.”
Oliver Alawuba
On the outlook for the year 2023, Alawuba expressed confident the 2023 performance, noting that the bank will grow its assets.
“We are strategically positioned to increase our market shares in our countries of presence, with expansion to Dubai, United Arab Emirates and strong growth of our digital banking and payment businesses which is pivotal to the evolving cashless economy in Nigeria. We strive to deliver increasingly attractive returns to our shareholders and continued positive impact in the geographies and economies in which we operate”.
Oliver Alawuba
UBA’s Executive Director of Finance and Risk Management, Ugo Nwaghodoh, on his part, opined that going by this recent performance, UBA remains on strong footing and is comfortably positioned to take on more opportunities in Africa and beyond.
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