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Stanbic IBTC Holdings has reported that its 2017 first quarter earnings rose by 35.2 percent on the back of growth in volume of treasury bills investment during the period. The bank’s holding company said gross earnings rose to N47 billion, as against N34.8 billion reported in a similar quarter of last year.

Interest income rose 51.8 percent to N26.8 billion rising from a sharp increase in yields from interest-bearing investment assets. However, fee and commission income declined marginally, while trading income rose significantly due to foreign exchange transactions.

“Decrease in net fee and commission revenue is mainly attributable to lower income from electronic channels as a result of regulation of the foreign exchange by the Central Bank of Nigeria with resultant impact on consumer's spending on foreign currency transactions,” the group said in a statement. “Growth in trading revenue is on the back of foreign exchange margins from plain vanilla forward transactions and non-derivative forward trades.”

After-tax profit rose 100.4 percent to N16.1 billion, compared to N8 billion a year earlier. The profit growth was due mainly to the strong increase in top-line earnings. Total assets rose by 11 percent to N1.17 trillion as against N1.05 trillion in Q1’16 owing to improvement in financial investments.

Stanbic IBTC’s revenue and profit outperformed analysts’ estimates, according to CardinalStone Partners, a Lagos-based investment advisory firm.

“The group achieved significant growth in profit after tax by over 100 percent, despite the challenging trading environment which was characterized by challenges with FX liquidity, difficult credit environment and an increasing cost of operations,” said Yinka Sanni, CEO of Stanbic IBTC Holdings. “We remain positive that economic activities will improve as the Nigerian economy is beginning to show signs of positive outlook due to an increase in the supply of foreign exchange to both retail and corporate users and decreasing headline inflation.”

Stanbic IBTC said basic per share earnings rose to N1.55 per share compared to 68 kobo per share a year earlier. The group’s stock rose 3.82 percent to close at N22.31 per share as of 12.05 PM at the Lagos bourse on Wednesday.