First Atlantic Bank witnessed a record surge in its profit for last year.
The bank’s profit between end-December 2019 and end-December 2020, increased by more than 84 million.
First Atlantic Bank’s profit for end-2020 stood at Ghs 85.8 million from the recorded end-2019 profit of Ghs 1.4 million.
The astronomical increase in the bank’s profit for the year under review per norvanreports examination of the First Atlantic Bank’s Financial Statement, was on the account of a more than Ghs 102 million operating profit from the day-to-day operations of the bank.
The Ghs 102 million operating profit represents a 5,100 percent increase in profits compared to the Ghs 2 million operating profit recorded for 2019.
Operating income for the year under review amounted to Ghs 304 million from Ghs 252 million in 2019. Net interest income for 2020 also amounted to Ghs 197 million from Ghs 164 million in 2019.
But not for the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) directive which temporarily disallows banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) from declaring and paying dividends, shareholders’ of First Atlantic Bank would have earned some Ghs 26.63 pesewas as dividends on each share.
Dividends paid to shareholders’ by the bank in 2019, was Ghs 0.47 pesewas.
With regards to assets value, First Atlantic Bank increased its total assets value from Ghs 2.7 billion in 2019 to Ghs 3.3 billion in 2020.
The increase in the bank’s assets value was on the account of increments in non-pledged trading assets (increased by more than Ghs 200 million), loans and advances to customers (increased by more than Ghs 150 million) and other assets (increased by more than Ghs 100 million).
The more than Ghs 150 million increment in loans and advances to customers – businesses and households – is believed to be due to the adverse impact of the pandemic, as the bank gave out more loans to support businesses and households.
The bank noted in its financial statement that it made loans totaling some Ghs 640 million of which it expects some Ghs 30 million to be lost through bad loans.
In terms of liabilities, the bank for the year 2020 recorded an increase of Ghs 500 million with total liabilities ending 2020 at Ghs 2.7 billion from Ghs 2.2 billion in 2019.
