With a 32% year-to-date appreciation in value, Fidelity Bank Plc’s shares have emerged as Nigeria’s best-performing year-to-date bank share.
Gatekeepers News reports that this was according to a recently published article on Bloomberg.
The MD/CEO, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, while shedding light on the bank’s business expansion plans especially to other African countries after finalising the acquisition of Union Bank UK, said, “The strategy is for us to move footprint outside Nigeria and be able to compete favorably with our peers. In the next three years, we should be able to be in six countries by doing at least two every year.”
The 35-year-old institution is racing to expand and avoid losing out on fees from facilitating trade and corresponding banking roles to larger rivals.
Meanwhile, trade within the continent, which stands at more than $350 billion a year, is expected to grow by 52% in the next decade according to the African Trade Policy Centre at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Slow economic recovery in Africa’s biggest economy after two recessions in 2016 and 2020, currency devaluations, and acute dollar shortages are forcing lenders to look outside to curb their risks and widen opportunities.
Onyeali-Ikpe, who took over the role two years ago, set a target for Fidelity to become one of the country’s top five banks by 2025, in earnings and assets. It’s the country’s sixth-largest lender, with 4 trillion naira in assets.
