Banks record profits in Q2

Mixed results characterised banks financial performance for the first half of the year, according to their unaudited financial statements.

For instance, Stanbic Bank Ghana’s profit for the first half of the year 2015 went up by 21.7 percent to GH¢69.16 million.

At the same time, its net interest income from both loans and investments shot up from GH¢110.76 million in June 2014 to GH¢170.76 million in June 2015. Its stated capital, one of the biggest in the banking industry, was, however, unchanged at GH¢108.241 million.

CAL Bank and NIB also witnessed growth in their profits for the first six months of this year.

While CAL’s bottom-line went up by 26.7 per cent to GH¢76.1 million, NIB’s profit inched up astronomically by 70 per cent to GH¢61.3 million.

Their interest incomes for the period stood at GH¢215.2 million and GH¢192.54 million respectively.

CAL recorded earnings per share 0f 13 pesewas during the period under review compared with 10 pesewas a year before.

NIB’s customer deposits also grew from GH¢880 million in 2014 to GH¢1.5 billion at the end of June 2015. Its stated capital however stood unchanged at GH¢70 million.

The first Nigerian bank to grace Ghana’s banking industry, UBA, also recorded some good results.

While its profit went by 6.9 per cent to GH¢52.7million at the end of the first half of the year, its fees and commission also grew from GH¢17.1 million a year before to GH¢24.7 million

On the other hand, Soceite Generale bagged a profit of GH¢13.2 million during the first half of the year.

This is, however, lower than the GH¢19.3 million recorded during the same period last year.

Basic earnings per share were lower, GH¢0. 0795 at the end of June 2015 compared with GH¢0.1160 the same period last year.

HFC Bank and Stanchart also saw their profits margins dipping. Whereas HFC’s profit went down from GH¢25.9 million in June 2014 to GH¢18.8 million in June 2015, Stanchart’s profit also dropped from GH¢110 million at the end of the first half of 2014 to GH¢72 million at the end of June 2015.

UT Bank also reported a GH¢30.6million loss in the first half of this year largely on account of high interest expenses which negatively impacted its results and dampened the positive effects of interest income that recorded a strong growth of 30 percent during the period.

However, total deposit for the first half of 2015 grew by 29 percent from GH¢889 million to GH¢ 1.2 billion.

Meanwhile, some banks recorded very high non-performing loans in their books. For instance, Bank for Africa recorded an NPL of 23.76 percent at the end of June 2015 but UBA had the best NPL in the industry of 2.50 percent at the end of the first six months of 2015.

During the first quarter of this year, commercial banks invested 73.3 percent of their investments alone in short-dated instruments and the figure could even go up since most of them have stopped lending particularly to new clients.