By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Pan African lender, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) said on Thursday its pretax profit for first quarter (Q1) 2015 grew 58 percent to N31 billion from N19.3 billion posted a year earlier.

Also, profit after tax (PAT) increased by 64 percent to N24.5 billion from N14.9 billion recorded in the same period of 2014.

Gross earnings inched up slightly by two (2) percent from N86.3 billion to N105 billion in the review period of 2015, the pan African bank said in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Share price of ETI at the end of today’s session on the Nigerian bourse climbed up 0.98 percent to N20.70 from N20.50 reported the previous session gaining 0.20 kobo per share.

Albert Essien, group chief executive officer (GCEO) of ETI said “For the first three months of 2015, we grew profit for the period by US$34 million or 37 percent to US$125 million from same period last year, while earnings-per-share increased 13 percent to 0.50 US$ cents. As expected, the quarter was characterised by macroeconomic headwinds including a strengthening US dollar, which significantly appreciated against our major functional currencies – Naira, Cedi, and XOF/XAF.

According to Essien, despite the headwinds, the bank’s diversified pan-African business model continued to serve as well, with encouraging underlying performance in its line of businesses and geographies. “We were pleased with our cost efficiency gains, which led to our cost-income ratio improving to 62.7 percent from 69.2 percent in 2014. Revenue growth was modest, given the seasonally low client-activity we see in the first quarter of the year and the currency translation impact we experienced,” he added.

Essien concluded: “We maintained adequate levels of capital to support our business. Our total capital adequacy ratio was 19.4 percent for the quarter versus 16.1 percent in the prior year. Overall, our results are reassuring in light of the challenging operating environment. We are deeply proud of the competitive advantage our platform provides and the work our dedicated staff continue to do for all our stakeholders. ”