First Bank Dispensed N 800 Billion from its ATMs in 2011

Blazing the trail in the cashless economy, First Bank has released information which states it dispensed N 800 billion from its ATMs in 2011.

The bank also grew the number of its electronic cards from 1.5 million in January 2011 to 4.3 million at the end of 2011, a growth of over 300%.

According to a statement released by the bank, “our Card Active Rate now at 76%, up from less than 48% the previous year. We have also grown the percentage of retail accounts with cards from less than 38% at the end of 2010 to over 72% at the end of 2011.Our channel migration rate has also increased to over 89% at the end 2011, relative to 58% in 2010. In addition, the number of monthly transactions carried out on our ATMs grew by 184%, from 3.2 million at the end of December 2010 to 9.1 million at the end of December 2011.”

The Bank recently released its financial statements, declaring N 44.7 billion in net income and proposing an 80 kobo dividend.

Speaking on its financial statements, the firm highlighted its transactions with AMCON as regards a N 99 billion loan it granted Seawolf, an oil company.

“We took an exceptional charge of N15.5 billion during the year. This was driven by haircut in respect of sales of eligible bank assets to AMCON worth N176.3 billion, with a net value of N148.8 billion, in exchange for bonds worth N189.4 billion with a discounted value of N133.3 billion. Included in the sale to AMCON was our $586.1 million (N99 billion) loan exposure to Seawolf Oilfield Services which, though performing, was deemed a systemically important loan by the regulatory authorities. This sale was executed at an 11% discount to par, which resulted in an N11 billion charge to our profit. The balance of N4.5 billion represents the haircut on non-performing loans sold to AMCON.”