Oliver Alawuba, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) has recounted the successes that the UBA recorded in the year 2022 and in the first quarter of 2023.

Alawuba said that the shareholders expressed happiness over the success that the bank recorded in 2022. He said, “Our dividend yield was over 14%, and that’s about the highest on exchange. They were very happy with the results that UBA was able to show.

“Our total assets climbed to over 10 trillion, our PBT climbed to 200 billion naira, and indeed, our profit after tax got up to 170 billion naira.

“That was a fantastic result, and I think, today, when I looked at the face of the shareholders, I saw them with smiles, I saw them with hope, that UBA is on the right track.”

He mentioned that the new customer policy had helped them to achieve their goal, as the staff had been more committed to attending to and solving customer needs. “I can tell you that today, the UBA is a different UBA. It is a UBA where staff are more committed to the ideals of customer experience, and these were very significant strategies that really helped us with that result.”

Speaking on the success of the first quarter and how he intended to keep up with the good results, he said, “The first quarter result for this year was very impressive and we are going to continue on that lane, and that lane is to ensure that the customers are happy with us. To ensure that our digital banking platforms are really giving the results that the customer expects in terms of the customer experience on those platforms. To also be sure that our businesses outside Nigeria, particularly in Africa… are doing quite well.”

When he was asked about how the UBA survived the debt restructuring in Ghana and if it would affect the Pan-African strategy, he said that instead, it will encourage them to do more for Africa. He further explained, “In Ghana’s debt exchange, UBA took some losses, but if you look at those losses, you’ll find out it was the lowest among our peers because we were able to manage that better. And I can tell you, in Africa, based on the contributions we are seeing from our subsidiaries in Africa, it’s an encouragement that we can do more. We are pushing up the figures, pushing up the numbers, pushing up the market share, we are improving our service delivery to Nigerians wherever they are, and we think that platforms for Africans to do business with the rest of the world is the UBA platform.”

He then mentioned that although the cost of operations has been high in recent times, UBA has made plans to cut costs and generate more revenue. He also expressed a desire to open more bank branches, and he said that digital banking and partnership will go a long way to ensure that the bank will continue to grow.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi