Our 65 Kobo Dividend Reasonable, Says Wigwe, Access Bank GMD

Herbert Wigwe, Group Managing Director and chief executive of Access Bank Plc, on Wednesday assured shareholders that the 65 kobo per share final dividend proposed by the directors for the year 2016 financial year is reasonable, given the difficult environment in which the group operated during the period.
Despite operating in a Nigerian economy steeped in recession in 2016, he said the bank’s management worked assiduously to ensure its service standard is not lowered but remained optimal.
Addressing issues raised by shareholders at the 28th annual general meeting in Lagos, Wigwe listed some of the constraints during the period under review to include withdrawal of N2.3tr public sector deposits from Deposit Money Banks in the country as part of implementing the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the Federal Government; worsened by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive withdrawing foreign exchange deposits from banks onto its coffers, following which Access Bank returned $1.0bn; among others.
In the light of these and more, he assured the shareholders that the 24% rise in customer deposits is real growth that is sustainable.
Commenting on the performance of its African subsidiaries, the GMD assured that they are doing well and even getting better, even as management would continue to keep them on track, going forward, to ensure they contribute more meaningfully to the diversification of the group’s top and bottom-line.
Another impressive ratio that is a pointer to the bank’s health and well-being, he said, is the Non-Performing Loan to Total Loans ratio of 2.1%, at a time when the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), recently lamented the unhealthy growth in NPL-to-total-loan ratio of 10%, double the CBN threshold of 5%.
Hosting visiting members of the House of Representatives Committee in his Abuja office, Alhaji Umar Ibrahim, MD of NDIC lamented that of the N18tr industry loan portfolio at the end of 2016, N1.8tr was non-performing. This, he said, is made worse by the fact that N740bn of the amount are insider/director related credits, which he said must be immediately addressed, because of the implication for an industry that is still battling with the ghost of the 2009/2010 banking sector crisis.
On the issue of the sterilized trillions of Naira arising from the increased Cash Reserve Ratio by the CBN, raised by Sir Sunny Nwosu, a shareholder, Wigwe, noted that it would be interesting for Access Bank to earn some income from its N30bn interest-free funds with the apex bank as a result of the increase in the ratio.
Commenting on the N40bn exposure to telecommunications giant- Etisalat, the MD assured that Access Bank is adequately covered, even as efforts are being made along with other banks that are creditors to the company to resolve the issues.
Nwosu had wondered why the apex bank continues to seemingly protect Etisalat that is a private concern like so many others in the economy whose loan agreement went awry.
The Access Bank boss assured that the 2017 financial year would see significant growth in its Ghana subsidiary, helped by the fresh capital raised in the fourth quarter of last year ready to be put into use.

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