In what could be said to be a dismal performance from the banking sector, investigations have revealed that most of the banks have posted losses in their 2009 balance sheet.

Reasons for these losses, it has be identified is not because there were no improvements in fundamental performances like increase in gross earnings or deposits,  but because they are now forced to keep the records straight in the spirit of full disclosures and transparency.

Consequently their bottom line have caved in, making most of the banks to announce huge losses. Even those that did not make losses have their profit seriously reduced.

For instance, Access Bank has made loan provisioning to the tune of N30.89 billion while Citibank provided for N320 million. Other include Diamond Bank which provided for N24.6 billion, Ecobank N33.39 billion, while FCMB provided N21 billion.

Also Fidelity made provision for N1.9 billon, First Bank (N29.50 billon), GTB (N24.96 billion) Stanbic IBTC (5.90 billion) Skye Bank (N32 billion), Sterling Bank (10.80 billion), UBA (N41.64 billion) and Zenith (N24.14 billion).

Apparently because of these provisioning, Intercontinental Bank, Oceanic Bank, Afribank and Union Bank recorded losses of N328.4 billion respectively.

Also, Bank PHB, Spring Bank and Finbank made losses of N438.65 billion, N23.30 billion and N200.68 billion each.

The latest victim to the recent banking reform is Wema Bank, where in spite of 82 per cent growth in gross earnings, the bank posted a loss in its nine months financials.

It said recently that the previous challenges faced by the bank had no doubt impacted adversely on its businesses as shown by the weak financial performance reported in its published accounts. It disclosed further that a major challenge for the bank was the quantum of non-performing loans and advances to the sum of N116.355 billion, which have been provisioned in the accounts and led to erosion of its capital base.

Segun Oloketuji, the bank’s group managing director, revealed that despite the bank’s gross earning growth of N23.683 billion, which is about 82 per cent against to previous year, the increase could not be reflected on the bank’s nine months balance sheet.

Oloketuyi however, attributed this dismal performance to the previous challenges faced by the bank, said a major challenge for the bank was the level of non-performing loans and advances.

The group managing director recalled in a statement that the issues that the bank faced in the last two years had necessitated in the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to appoint an interim management board to oversee the operations of the bank, and that after 18 months the interim board would hand over responsibility for the management of the bank to current management team.

“The release of these results mark a fulfillment of the new management’s commitment to transparency adherence to regulations and sound corporate governance practices.

“However, in this challenge lies our greatest opportunity to recapitalise the bank through the bold initiatives that the board and management have taken to recover these non-performing loans. We are pleased by the result achieved so far.

A significant amount of recoveries have been made post September 30, 2009 balance sheet date.