Umuchinemere Procredit
Microfinance Bank Nigeria Limited

Enugu based Umuchinemere Pro-credit Micro Finance Bank Nigeria Limited, on Tuesday said its shareholders, at its Annual General meeting, unanimously approved the payment a five kobo dividend per share for the financial year ended December 31 2017.

The payout, according to the statement by Abuchi Anueyiagu, its Head, Public/Media relations, could have been juicier, but for the effects of rising bad loans for which the bank was statutorily required to make provision.

This is just as the bank, owned by the Catholic Diocese of Enugu, spoke of ongoing plans to recapitalised ahead of the N1bn minimum capital base for state MFBs as set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a recent, ahead of the April 1, 2020 deadline.

The statement quoted the bank's Chairman, Monsignor Anthony Chukwuma Anijielo, as imploring the shareholders to increase their investments, stressing that "if all the investors will increase their investments in the bank, we will become a national bank."

On the year's performance, he told shareholders at the AGM that bad loans remain a major factor militating against the growth and development of Nigeria's banking sector. Unfortunately, he lamented that Umuchinemere Pro-credit Micro Finance Bank remains a major victim of the development, which adversely affected its performance in the period under review.

He called for the eradication the evil called non-performing loans, otherwise referred to as Portfolios At Risk (PAR) from the country's financial system, assuring that UPMFB was putting measures in place to mitigate the high incidence of toxic loans now prevalent in the bank sector.

Continuing, he said the "use of the services of credit bureau has enabled (UPMFB) avoid, to a reasonable extent, having (clients) with multiple borrowings from other financial institutions."

That notwithstanding, Msgr. Anijielo assured that aggressive loans recovery drive is ongoing by the bank's staff members through regularly visit to clusters is helping to save the life of the bank.

He appealed to debtor customers not to wait until legal actions are taken to recover such loans, but to spare themselves such embarrassments by repaying their loans promptly. According to the financial report, UPMFB recorded a sharp ₦17.71m, or 46.41% drop in profit after tax for the period, due to such bad loans, to ₦20.450, 744, as against the figure of ₦38.161m the previous year.