- Tier 1 lenders lead commitments
Ten deposit money banks in the country spent a total of N260.21 billion on personnel expenses in the first half of this year, which is 1.711 per cent less than the N255.83billion that they reported for the corresponding period of 2020, findings by New Telegraph show.
The DMBs are the industry’s five Tier 1 lenders- Access Bank, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank), FBN Holdings and United Bank for Africa (UBA). Others are, First City Monument Bank(FCMB), Union Bank, Fidelity Bank, Stanbic IBTC, and Sterling Bank.
New Telegraph’s analysis of the banks’ H1’21 financial statements, however, shows that most of the lenders spent less on personnel expenses in the
first six months of this year, compared with the corresponding period of 2020. Sterling Bank’s unaudited financial statements, for the period ended 30 June, 2021, for instance, indicate that it spent N7.35billion on personnel expenses as against the N7.41 billion it spent in the corresponding period of last year.
Also, Fidelity Bank reported that it spent N11.10billion on personnel expenses for H1’ 2021, which is 8.9 per cent lower than the N12.19billion it recorded for the first half of last year.
Similarly, Union Bank spent N14.67billion on personnel expenses in the first six months of this year compared with N15.50billion in the corresponding period of 2020. Tier 1 lender, UBA reported that at N42.62billion, what it spent on personnel expenses in the first half of 2021 was 4.36 per cent less than the N44.57billion it recorded for H1’20.
Equally, Zenith Bank’s H1’21 financial statements show that personnel expenses dropped to N37.58billion from N38.87billion in the corresponding period of last year. Also, GTB spent N17.24 billion on personnel expenses in the first half of this year compared with N17.45billion it reported for H1’20.
Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, Access Bank, spent N43.60billion on personnel expenses in the first six months of this year as against N36.25billion in the corresponding of last year. At N51.24billion,FBN Holdings’ staff costs for H1’ 2021 was 3.43 per cent higher than the N49.54billion the Tier 1 lender reported for the first six months of last year.
Stanbic IBTC reported staff costs of N20.20billion in its H1’ 2021 audited fi- nancial statements compared with N19.91billion the Tier 2 lender recorded for the corresponding period of last year. Similarly, FCMB’s staff costs increased to N14.62billion in H1’ 21, from N14.15billion in the first half of last year. Analysts note that staff costs still constitute a major part of lenders’ operating expense, even though many bank workers lost their jobs in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis,
According to the “Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength(Q4’20)” report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in April this year, the total staff strength of the nation’s DMBs shrank by 8,584 employees between Q4’19 and Q4’20.
The report showed that banks’ staff strength stood at 95, 026 in Q4’ 2020 compared with 103, 610 in the corresponding period of the previous year. This means that in the one year period, 8,584(8.28 per cent) employees either resigned or were sacked by the financial institutions.
