Standard Bank has restated its commitment to Nigeria as one of its core countries for investment, according to an official. The official, however said that non-disclosure agreements with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on its expansion plans were guarding its pronouncements.

The Deputy Group Chief Executive of the bank, Mr Ben Kruger spoke on the bank’’s position in Nigeria as the group presented its financial results for six months ending June 30, 2010 in Johannesburg.

Kruger, who spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the event, said the bank’’s process of getting deeper root in Nigeria through the banking reforms were “extremely positive”.

“We have a process but have signed very strong non-disclosure agreements with the CBN that guide what we can and cannot say about the process. We think the process is extremely positive,” Kruger said, restating the resilience of the Nigerian banking sector.
“The CBN has embarked on a very good process of cleaning up the sector and positioning it to facilitate a much higher growth rate in Nigeria in times to come,” he said.

Kruger said with the clean up, a strong financial sector in Nigeria will be well positioned to help the country significantly in very large scale infrastructure projects that will enormously benefit the economy in the short, medium and long term.  The Deputy Group CEO also projected on the face of the banking industry a decade to come in view of the on-going reforms.

“I see the Nigerian banking industry much more consolidated, I will think there are about 24 banks that exist in Nigeria which will most probably move down to 12 –– 14 banks. Most probably at that time, at least three banks will be with a capital base that will be between seven and 10 billion US dollars, and also a number of second tier banks with capital bases of about five billion dollars which will have an enormous impact on the Nigerian economy”, he said. Kruger said the setting will impact the economy in terms of transactions they can finance and the type of deals they can facilitate in terms of Foreign Direct Investment, trade as well as developing the domestic economy in all sectors.

““I also will see all of the banks in Nigeria expanding more deeply into what is called inclusive banking,”” he said, explaining that they should be reaching more of the un-banked. We think it will be a very vibrant , extremely competitive market place,’’ he said, noting that the industry already has very strong banks” he added.

Kruger, a non-executive director in STANBIC IBTC, said the Nigerian bank had a good run in the last six months when it among other things, increased its retail banking operation with 50 new branches. The bank last week posted a profit after tax of N5.3bn in the first six months of 2010.  Its unaudited result showed that profit before tax was N7.3bn while net interest income stood at N14.0bn, a 33 per cent increase over N10.5bn posted in June 2009.

The bank‘s operating income increased to N24.1bn, while gross revenue grew by four per cent to N28.4bn, compared to N27.2bn recorded in 2009 Earlier at the Group results presentation, the bank Group CEO, Mr Jacko Maree, said Africa is reaping the rewards of reform, better macro-economic management, investments in infrastructure and more constructive trade partnership. The bank said Africa and links to Africa will remain the centre point of its strategy.

In its six month results ending June 30, it said ““normalized headline earnings of R5, 989million were up 11 per cent on the comparable six month period, while normalized headline earnings per share of 382 cents were nine per cent higher””.