New Telegraph

Personnel expenses gulp N449.5bn in 11 banks

  • GTCO, Stanbic IBTC, Fidelity record low cost

Eleven deposit money banks in the country incurred a total of N449.53billion as personnel expenses in 2021, up 7.26 per cent when compared to  N419.11billion spent in the previous year, according to FY’2021 financial statements released by the lenders.

The banks are Access Bank, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holding Company(GTCO), United Bank for Africa (UBA), First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Fidelity Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Sterling Bank, Wema Bank, Unity Bank and Jaiz Bank.

New Telegraph analysis of the results indicates that with the exception of GTCO  BANKSStanbic IBTC and Fidelity Bank, the lenders reported higher personnel expenses last year compared with 2020.

For instance, the audited  FY’21 financial statements of  Nigeria’s largest lender by asset value, Access Bank, show that it spent N96.71billion on its personnel compared with N73.17billion in 2020.

Similarly, UBA’s audited FY’21 financial statements indicate that its personnel expensesrosetoN93.24billion last year from N87.55billion in 2020. Also, Zenith Bank’s audited financial results for the period under review show that its personnel expenses increased marginally by 0.46 per cent to N79.89billion last year from N79.52billion in 2020.

 

As stated earlier, GTCO’s FY’21 audited financial results indicate that the lender’s personnel expenses reduced last year, dropping to N33.43billion from N37.61billion in 2020. Leading Tier 2 lender, Stanbic IBTC, equally reported reduced personnel expenses for last year as its FY’21 audited financial statements show that staff costs stood at N42.04billion compared with N42.14billion in 2020.

 

In the same vein, Fidelity Bank’s FY’21 audited financial results also show that its personnel expenses dropped to N23.47billion in 2021 from N25.37billion in the previous year. However, at N31.26billion, the amount that FCMB spent on personnel in 2021, according to its FY’21 audited financial results, was N1.74billion more than the N29.52billion it spent in 2020.

Sterling Bank’s audited financial results for the period under review also show that its personnel expenses increased slightly to N14.92billion from N14.84billion in the previous year. According to Wema Bank’s FY’21 audited financial results, personnel expenses rose to N16.68billion from N14.08billion in 2020.

Unity Bank’s FY’21 unaudited financial results also indicate that the lender’s personnel expenses increased marginally to N10.66billion from N10.41billion in the previous year.

 

The FY’21 audited financial statements of the only non-interest lender among the 11 banks, Jaiz Bank, show that its personnel expenses increased to N7.24billion from N4.90billion in 2020.

 

Analysts note that the personnel expenses of lenders, which include wages and salaries of employees, pension contributions and other staff costs, have been heading north in the last few years due to rising inflation even though the industry has laid off employees as part of cost cutting measures introduced to tackle the harsh business environment occasioned by the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

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