Sterling Bank Plc, a full-service national commercial bank, has reported a net interest income growth of N47.53 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, 2019 as against N39.834 billion for the corresponding period of 2018, representing a growth of 19.3 percent.

The double-digit net interest income growth was driven by 200 percent growth in the bank’s retail and consumer loans portfolio. Specta, the bank’s innovative digital lending platform, supported this growth with volumes averaging N8 billion per month, reaching over 40,000 individuals as at Q3 2019.

Commenting on the financial performance, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman, Chief Executive Officer, Sterling Bank, said “Our performance continues to reflect positive results of strategic decisions and investments in our focus areas. We recorded significant improvement in transaction led revenue and our funding base riding on adoption of digital channels. Overall, we delivered a 7.7% increase in operating income and profit after tax of N7.58 billion.

“Going into the final quarter, we will continue to take a customer-centric centric approach to achieving growth and enhance our digital capacity to further support the business, while remaining focused on exceeding our performance in the previous year.”

He noted that the bank recorded a 7.7 percent improvement in operating income of N65.493 billion during the quarter ended September 30, 2019 against N60.822 billion during the corresponding period of 2018 and profit after tax of N7.578 billion in 2019.

Other financial highlights showed that customer deposit also appreciated to N853.551 billion during the period under review compared to N760.6 billion in the corresponding period of 2018, indicating a growth of N12.2 percent while loans advances to customers grew to N635.093 in 2019 from N621.017 billion in 2018, representing a growth of 2.3 percent.

In the same way, shareholders’ funds rose to N109.535 billion during the period under review in 2019 compared to N97.800 billion reported for the corresponding of 2018, representing a growth of 12 percent while operating income after impairment rose by 1.3 percent to N61.583 billion compared to N60.822 billion in September 2018.

Further analysis also showed that non-performing loans dropped to 7.4 percent during the review period in 2019 from 8.7 percent in the corresponding period of 2018, representing an improvement of 14.6 percent.

Sterling Bank Plc is a leading commercial banking establishment in Nigeria. It commenced operations as NAL Bank in 1960. It currently has more than N1 trillion in total assets, 180 business offices and over 800 ATMs nationwide.

The bank has grown into a major financial institution and prides itself as ‘Your one-customer bank’ that celebrates each customer as a unique individual.