As a sigh of absolute confidence in the Management of the technology-driven
new bank; SunTrust Bank, its customers increased deposits in the bank by a
whopping 432 per cent, making it possible for the bank to declare an
impressive profit before tax of N343 million, an increase of 160.3 per
cent over the N131.9million reported in 2015.
Meanwhile its Income tax expense moved from N10 million to N130.6 million
to leverage profit after tax gain of 74.6per cent to N212.7 million from
N121.8 million in 2015.
With growth in profitability, Earnings per Share (EPS) gained 12.5 per cent
to N0.18 in 2016 from N0.16 recorded in 2015. Following the above, return
on equity (ROE) moved from 1.2 per cent to 2per cent.
Despite the 2016 recession that led to severe macro economy challenges, the
bank recorded growth in customer deposits through its broad range of unique
financial services and products to individuals, small businesses,
corporation and the government. Also, the Bank effectively managed its
interest expenses that impacted positively on Net Interest Income in 2016.
The bank focuses its lending activities to the SMEs, Retail Consumers, and
Emerging Corporates. It also explores other specialized development finance
activities, including the agricultural value chain.
It will be recalled that the bank’s Chief Executive, Muhammed Jubrin,
recently assured operators in the small and medium scale enterprises sector
that his bank will focus on the small businesses by availing financing and
thus ensuring that the sector plays its pivotal role in the economy.
Jubrin said: “In line with our strategy, we are going to drive SMEs
transactions certainly… and part of our strategy is retail banking, we want
to create a retail bank of choice and certainly SMEs is the engine room for
the growth of any economy and to provide financing services, to support the
SMEs will be the only way, we can support the growth of the economy and
particularly in line with the vision of the CBN and the current
administration”
On the focus and strategy of the bank, the CEO said: “Over 90 per cent of
banking transaction are being transacted electronically worldwide. Banking
is no longer where you go to… the only financial institution that can stand
in the future is no longer those with physical branches but only by banking
services that will be driven by technology and therefore most customers of
tomorrow will no longer be interested in going to the banking halls… We are
a financial technology bank that will bring banking to your home rather
than make you come to us…We will be everywhere but we will be nowhere…we
will have the minimum branches required to operate as a bank but we will
drive financial services through technology…” He assured.
Commenting further on the operations of the bank, the CEO explained that:
“We will offer telephone, mobile and Internet banking underpinned by the
traditional banking ethics of probity and integrity.”
The bank’s competitive edge will be the strong reliance on technology and
the bank will be encouraging customers to access its services from the
comfort of their homes and offices and as such the bank will not be
engaging in a proliferation of branches.
“Our services will be available to our customers 24 hours daily, seven days
a week and from anywhere in the world where there is a good Internet
service.
“Even our data centre is outsourced, this way we will not have the
overbearing requirement to put on the generator at our locations,” he
explained.
By adopting a branchless strategy, SunTrust will save the N100m-N120M
required to build a modern branch and the about N2.5m it costs to run the
generators at a typical bank branch.
Customers of SunTrust are encouraged to use any bank ATM because the bank
will not be charging them the fee charged by other banks for using ATM
machines belonging to other banks.
According to the CEO, “we will not be emphasising physical security as we
are making serious investment in cyber security instead.”