New Managing Director/Chief Executive of Sterling Bank Abubakar Suleiman, on Tuesday assured Nigeria’s investment community of continued robust growth in the key measurement parameters going forward, despite the challenging operating environment, including the impending drop in interest rate regime.
Suleiman, who was speaking during the facts-behind-the-figures organized by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), where he gave details of the group’s latest performance, assuring that Sterling Bank could deliver another 65% growth in net profit in the current financial year, just as in 2017.
This, he continued, is despite an expected decline in lending revenue from the 66% achieved in the 2017 full-year, as would be dictated by the interest rate environment; the impact of which would be mitigated by the expected rise in transaction banking income. Driving this growth, he stressed, would be the bank’s investment in technology (core-banking application) platform.
Among others, he forecast a 15% growth in deposit base for Sterling Bank in the current financial year, same as Return on Equity (RoE); just as the management hopes to drive down None Performing Loans ratio below the 5% regulatory threshold.
Already, he said the recent Q1 result by Sterling Bank has given indications of where it hopes to be, going forward with RoE rising to 12.8% from 9% in 2017 full-year; while liquidity improved from 33% to 39% in Q1.
The management, he continued, is working at driving down the Cost-to-Income ratio.
To achieve these targets, Suleiman said Sterling Bank has identified five focus sectors: Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation, it plans to play in 2018 and the coming years.
The growth, he reiterated, would be enhanced by technology and the impact of Fintech, which entail “responsive banking by adopting an agile way of doing business.”
Sterling Bank, he continued, would not play in all sectors, hence the selection of the five sectors with the acronym “HEART” where it intends to specialize, because according to Suleiman, “nobody is big enough to do everything as a specialist.”
Specialisation, he continued, would enhance a reduction in cost of funds, resulting in the expected drop in loan loss.
Commenting on the drop in consumer credit, he said the bank recent fashioned a process where such loans can be processed within five minutes, a situation that has been tested with over 3,000 customers within the first two weeks of its introduction.
“We are expecting to deliver better numbers in 2018… We intend to continue our double-digit growth.
“This year, we have a commitment to grow consumer lending 10-fold to N25bn,” he said, blame the problem of consumer in the past on the lack of database and credible identity of bank customers. Both challenges, he continued, are been resolved by credit bureaus and the Bank Verification Numbering (BVN) respectively.

Photo caption: From left to right, Godstime Iwenekhai, Head, Listing Regulation, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Tinu Awe, Executive Director, Regulation, NSE; Abubakar Suleiman, Chief Executive Officer, Sterling Bank Plc and Yinka Oni, Chief Information Officer, Sterling Bank Plc during the Facts Behind the Figures presentation at the Exchange on Tuesday, May 8, 2018.