Assets value and profit of Bank of Africa (BoA) Ghana, recorded for the first quarter of 2021 witnessed a year-on-year decline of 7.3 and 18 percentage points respectively.
Total assets value at end-March 2020, stood at Ghs 2 billion but declined to Ghs 1.9 billion at end-March 2021.
Profit recorded for Q1 2020 also stood at Ghs 18.9 million but fell to Ghs 16 million in Q1 2021.
Contraction in BoA’s assets value was fueled by decrements in cash and cash equivalents, investment securities and ‘other asset.’
Value of cash and cash equivalents fell from Ghs 440 million in Q1 2020 to Ghs 348 million in Q1 2021.
Value of investment securities held by the bank also fell to Ghs 678 million from Ghs 757 million for the period under review.
The fall in BoA’s profit for Q1 2021 is despite a recorded increment in the bank’s operating income.
Decline in BoA’s profit was driven mainly by a Ghs 10 million decrease in its net trading income. Net trading income contracted from Ghs 15.2 million in Q1 2020 to Ghs 5 million in Q1 2021.
BoA for the period under review managed to drive down its liabilities by reducing the amount of borrowings it made from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021.
Total liabilities end-Q1 2021 amounted to Ghs 1.2 billion from the recorded figure of Ghs 1.4 billion end-Q1 2021.
Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) posted by the bank on a year-on-year basis increased by 2.55 percentage points from 12.93 percent in Q1 2020 to 15.48 percent in Q1 2021.
The increase in BoA’s NPLs represents a deterioration in its loan asset quality.
The bank also failed to improve upon its Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), as its adequacy ratio declined by 3.32 percentage points from 39.84 percent in Q1 2020 to 36.52 percent in Q1 2021.
BoA’s CAR however, still remains well above the regulatory 13 percent CAR requirement of the Central Bank.
