Wema Bank Plc is one of the commercial lenders that have been badly hit by the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This has become a lot of worry to shareholders of the bank following its figures at the end of the first half of the year 2020.

Many did not envisage the disruption caused globally by the (COVID-19). So, a lot of companies were caught napping and have had tales of woes to tell. The pandemic forced Nigerian economy to be shut for five weeks.

Consequently, the economy has been projected to slip into recession by the third quarter of this year. And the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted the country’s economy will contract by -5.4 per cent in 2020.

Consequently, Wema Bank’s profit after tax (PAT) declined by 33.53 per cent to N1.49 billion in the first six months of the year, compared to N2.25 billion it made in H1’19. Its profit before tax (PBT) also fell 33.75 per cent to N1.73 billion in H1 2020.

The lender’s revenue contracted 6.57 per cent to N38.15 billion instead of the N40.84 billion it generated in the prior period, weakened by interest income which was lower by 9.23 per cent and net fee and commission income that declined 16.38 per cent during the period under review, although net non-interest income was higher by 4.5 per cent to N8.3 billion from N7.94 billion in H1 2019.

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