Access Holdings maintains resilience in H1’22 scorecard

BY EMEKA EJERE

The expansionary drive of Access Holdings Plc has again recorded a boost with the Group’s 2022 unaudited half-year financials showing gross earnings of N591.803 billion, representing a growth of 31.42% year-on-year.

The result, which is on the back of an inflationary year, where businesses and their consumers have had to deal with the rising cost of goods and services, also showed significant improvements across key performance indicators.

The Herbert Wigwe-led Access Holdings completed a conversion to a holding company in March, thereby creating avenue to branch out into other financial services like payments, insurance and asset management.
The financial group, which operates in sixteen markets, is ambitious pursuing an aspiration to be numbered among the five largest banks on the continent in five years.

“My sense is that by 2027, you will see us getting close to one of the top-5 banks in the continent,” from its current ranking of 12th, Wigwe told a press conference in Lagos in February.

The Group said last year it planned to set up offices in Hong Kong and Paris by last June, and has subsequently stated another aspiration to foray into six new countries.

Further analysis of the results submitted to the Nigeria Exchange Limited (NGX) indicates that the bank’s profit before tax rose marginally by 0.42% to N97.791 billion from N97.379 billion reported in 2021.

Profit after tax stood at N88.739 billion from N86.819 billion posted in 2021, representing a marginal growth of 2.21 percent.

Interest income calculated using the effective interest rate rose by 22.51 percent to N342.530 billion from N279.594 billion recorded in the half year of 2021.

According to the Group, during the period under review, the Board of Directors proposed interim Dividend of 20 Kobo per ordinary share of 50 Kobo each on the 35,545,225,622 issued ordinary shares of 50k each payable to shareholders on the register of shareholding at the closure date. Withholding Tax will be deducted at the time of payment.

Net interest income after impairment charges declined by 6.25% to N160.639 billion in 2022 from N171.350 billion in 2021.

Other operating income dropped by 27.35% to N10.029 billion in half year 2022 from N13.804 recorded in 2021, while other income declined by 14.86 percent to N22.011 billion from N25.853 billion the previous year.

Fee and commission income grew by 10.42 percent to N81.100 billion in 2022 from N73.446 billion the previous year amid increase in fee and commission expense which grew by 71.22 percent to N25.662 billion from N14.988 billion.

Nigeria’s biggest bank by assets had maintained its growth trajectory for the fourth consecutive year, recording 51.13% growth in profit to N160 billion for the full year ended December 31, 2021.

By this feat, the tier 1 lender had grown its profits by 167% in four years since hitting N60 billion in 2017. The financial group also recorded gross earnings of N971.9 billion for the financial year ended December 31, 2021, representing an increase of 27 per cent over N764.7 billion posted in the financial year 2020.

Access Bank was a small commercial bank, ranked 65th in size out of 89 banks in the country when Wigwe and his business partner, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, acquired it in 1998. It was scaled up through a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions, including the historic acquisition of Diamond Bank,  to build capacity and market strength over the years .