Fidelity Bank Plc (FIDELITYBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

September 8, 2020

Nigerian Exchange NG Financials Banks earnings 50 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fidelity Bank H1 2020 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo. Please go ahead, sir.

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#2

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Nnamdi Okonkwo, CEO of Fidelity Bank, and I welcome you to our H1 2020 results conference call. I'll start with performance updates. We closed the period with a PBT of NGN 12 billion, which was a double-digit growth of 21.9% when compared with H1 PBT of NGN 9.8 billion. We had to restate our H1 2019 numbers from NGN 15.1 billion to NGN 9.8 billion. This was due to the impact of first time implementation of IFRIC 21 Levies. Now the implication of this accounting treatment was that our full year AMCON Cost for 2020 financial year, which amounted to NGN 11.9 billion was recognized 100% in our H1 financial statements rather than being amortized over 12 months as was done previously in our financials. So on account of this and for comparative proposes, we made some adjustments to H1 2019 comparative numbers. So without the adoption of IFRIC 21, our actual PBT for H1 2020 would have come in at NGN 17.9 billion compared with NGN 15.1 billion originally reported in H1 2019. The growth in PBT was attributable to a 27.1% increase in operating income to NGN 66.6 billion compared to an 8.3% increase in operating expenses to NGN 46.8 billion. So in absolute terms, our operating income grew by NGN 14.2 billion, while operating expenses grew by NGN 3.4 billion. NIM came in ahead of guidance at 6.4%. This was due to significant decline in funding costs, and this drove the growth of 31% in net interest income. In addition, we saw a significant decline in most fee income lines in Q2. Of course, understandably, this was due to the slowdown in economic activities. Happily, it was offset by significant growth in our FX income, which was driven by revaluation gains on our net loan position. We'll be speaking about that later. Our cost-income ratio came down to 70% in H1, as we saw a material decline in most expense lines in Q2 due to lower operating costs at our business objectives, as a greater percentage of our people had to work remotely. For ROE, it stood at 9.4%. This tracks behind our 2020 guidance of 11.3%. Marking our balance sheet. We currently use NIFEX exchange rate of NGN 386.75 to the dollar, and that led to a 1.4% increase in total deposits and a 2.8% on the net loan book. Over the period, total deposits increased by 14.8% to NGN 1.4 trillion, and that was driven by a 10.6% -- 10.7% growth in low-cost deposits, which explains the 200 basis points drop in our funding costs. For local currency deposits, it grew by 18%, while foreign currency deposits recorded a 4.2% increase, as we saw increased utilization by customers to meet their foreign exchange obligations. For loans and advances, it increased by 7.3% to NGN 1.2 trillion. However, the actual growth in loans was 4.5%, but the impact of currency adjustments accounted for 2.8% of the growth. So if you put those 2 together, it gives you the 7.3% you see there. Cost of risk increased 1.3%. This is on account of our proactively increasing in payments for the sectors that we saw that were badly affected by COVID-19 pandemic. So it led to an increase in total impairments for the period to NGN 7.8 billion on the loan book of NGN 1.2 trillion. And this NGN 7.8 billion, if you compare it with same period last year, we had NGN 600 million write-back. At this time, it's NGN 7.8 billion charge. I'd like to speak about forbearance window with CBN granted to provide some color on what we've done there. We consider obligors that would require any of these 4 parameters; interest rate adjustments, tenor extension, principal moratorium or interest moratorium. Then we modeled our loan book using 3 scenarios, which came up for the impact of the pandemic on our business strategy. So in the best case scenario, we had model that will be granting forbearance on 25% of the loan book. For moderate case, we're looking at 50%, and worst-case scenario is 75%. But having said this, actual forbearance so far is 32.5%. And out of this, 10% is on account of public sector accounts. Our NPL ratio increased to 4.8% from 3.3% in corresponding period of last year. This was on account of 58.8% growth in absolute Stage 3 loan book. This quarter reflects our conservative assessment of the sectors affected by the pandemic. For the regulatory ratios, we remain above the required thresholds. Capital adequacy ratio increased to 18.8% from 18.3%. This was due to the capitalization of H1 audited numbers, which we are discussing today. Our liquidity ratio stood at 32.1%. So looking into H2, our cost numbers will come in lower because we are taking the AMCON cost in full in H1, which I mentioned earlier. So having taken that pain in H1, it means that we will be free of any AMCON charge for the rest of the year. However, we also do not expect to have the same level of FX income coming through in Q3 and Q4. So I'll now give you some governance update, as some of you may be aware, our immediate past Chairman, Mr. Ernest Ebi, turned 70. In line with our internal policy he retired. And in his place, we already have a new Chairman, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi. Then as we also may be aware, I'll be completing my contractual tenure 31st of December 2020. So in line with our succession planning strategy, the Board has already appointed a CEO designate, who will be succeeding me January 1, 2021. She is Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe. And these appointments have already been approved by Central Bank. So we are currently in transition on a carefully crafted schedule. We will be announcing some Board changes in Q4 as well. Some of our executive directors, as they complete -- nonexecutive directors, who will be completing their tenure, so we'll also announce a new executive to replace Nneka who will be coming in as CEO January 1. So we will be announcing her successor in due course, most likely in Q4. So on this note, I'll hand over to Gbolahan to take us through detailed presentation. And after that, we'll be open to take questions. Thank you for your attention.

Gbolahan Joshua

executive
#3

Thank you, Nnamdi. So I'll just start from Slide 4. It just shows an overview of the bank. Total assets are now $6.2 billion, head count 2,869 staff and 5.4 million accounts, 2.7 million mobile customers. For team member Board, 9 member executive management team. I'll go to Slide 5, which just shows an overview of our retail and digital banking play. We've still sustained growth on a year-on-year basis. Savings came in very strong at 32% in H1, it's NGN 364 billion, and it's now about 26% of the deposit book. From a digital penetration perspective, over 51% of our customers are using our mobile and internet banking products, 87% of our transactions are done on the digital channels. In the recently released KPMG Digital Channel Scorecard, our chatbot was rated as the clear leader, and our USSD channel was also in the top tier. I'll go to Slide 7, which speaks to the operating environment, pressure points from a GDP perspective, it's come down. We see more moderate growth in credit to the private sector. The increase in the price of PMS and the electricity tariffs that could spike a little political risk, even though it's positive for some of the obligors we have on the power book. In terms of COVID-19, its impact on the businesses, I think we've seen the worst of that. We've seen some stabilization in terms of the yields. The oil prices have recovered above $40. Deposit growth has been positive, also because of the dearth of investment and outlets. The naira is still under pressure, but CBN has commenced FX sales to the FPI and the BDC. Now I'll go to Slide 8, which just speaks to what we did from a COVID-19 perspective and the notable measures we implemented. And the bank set up 2 committees to look at business continuity and business strategy, both headed by Executive Director. From a business strategy perspective, we looked at 3 scenarios. Base case scenario was the economy opening in July, moderate case was in October and then worst-case was 2021. And looking across the scenarios, we felt it will affect our business from a PBT perspective from 15% decline to 30%. We're currently working with the best case scenario, and that's why we modeled for a lower ROE for this year. We've had to grant moratorium, in line with the CBN forbearance to some select sectors. Nnamdi just said, about 32.5% of the loan book has been granted to forbearance, a chunk of that in the public sector space because of the loans we had under the CBN intervention funds. And from a business continuity perspective, we introduced new COVID-19 protocols limiting footfalls for staff and customers in the banking hall with just 5 customers at a time. We implemented new health and safety procedures across the branches. About 50% of our staff were working remotely. The prior investments we've made in technology came in very handy for us to be able to work remotely seamlessly from a collaboration perspective. We had to migrate additional services to the cloud so that staff could access them remotely. And then from a security perspective, we had to have new IT security protocols in view of the changing cybersecurity landscape. I'll go to Slide 12 -- Slide 10. I think Nnamdi has spoken a lot about the financial highlights, but gross earnings, up 2% to NGN 106 billion, growth in both fund-based and fee-based income. We saw NIM coming at 6.4%. That drove the growth in the fund-based income. And then a lot of the growth in the fee-based income was driven by the increased FX income coming from the revaluation gains. Operating income was up 27% to $66 billion, and even though OpEx was up 8.3% to $46.8 billion, and that brought down CIR to 70%. Cost of risk was up significantly to 1.3% in H1, and then PBT came in at $12 billion, 22% growth. Nnamdi has spoken about the restatement of the accounts, and I'll just go to Slide 11. So we're marking the balance sheet at NGN 386.75. That had an impact of 1.4% growth on our deposit base and 2.8% growth on the loan book. Our total deposit was up to NGN 1.4 trillion. Local currency deposits are NGN 1.1 trillion. And then FCY deposits went down to NGN 300 billion. And then in dollar terms, it also went down because customers were utilizing the FX for their needs. I've spoken about savings, it was responsible for almost 50% of the deposit growth in H1 2020. And then the net loan book, 2.8% of that due to the impact of the currency adjustment and then 4.5% growth due to pure-play and loan growth. LDR is at 65.9%. When we put the weighting for the retail and SME sectors, it goes to 69.8%. Above this 65% threshold, we've never been debited for not meeting the LDR requirement. CAR has improved to 18.8% from 18.3%. Internal guidance is 16%. Right now, we only recognize 20% of our local currency bond. And I'll speak to that when I get to the slide on capital. Slide 12, just shows the key highlights from the revenue, asset quality and capital adequacy perspective. FCY loans have moved up to 45.7% of the net loan book, obviously, because of the currency adjustment. The NPL ratio, which is Stage 3 loans, is up to 4.8% from 3.3%. Slide 13 shows a detailed breakdown of the income statement. And you see pressure points from a fee income perspective. Digital banking income was down 29%. And that's a trend we've seen across the industry because of the reduction, and this is attributable to e-channels from the new bankers’ tariff. Slide 14 shows the quarter-on-quarter movement in the P&L number. Net interest income came in at 3.6% lower, very strong growth in fee income coming in at 120% growth, the chunk of that obviously coming from FX and income. Operating expenses were up about 19.8 -- about NGN 3.5 billion, 16.6%. A chunk of that also coming in from the additional AMCON cost recognized in Q2, which was a growth of about NGN 6 million compared to Q1 2020. From a balance sheet perspective, looking to Slide 15, cash reserve, we've had additional debit of about NGN 145 billion in H1, 42% growth in the cash reserve. Effective cash reserve ratio on a deposit -- local currency deposit book of NGN 1.1 trillion is about 44%. We've also had some lending from DCRR perspective, about NGN 70 billion. If you net that off, it is a net CRR of about 38%. Strong growth on all the other lines, most of deposit lines came in very strong. On Slide 16, I'll go to the breakdown of the earnings. You look at Q2, and you see that there was a decline in most of the fee income line, obviously, due to slowdown in economic activities and there was good FX income and then trade income was down about 55%. Slide 17 speaks to NIM. We modeled for 5.5% to 6% for this year. It's still strong at 6.4% as of H1. We think it's still going to go down slightly, as we get into the H2 for two reasons; number one, the higher-yielding fixed income securities will mature from a reinvestment perspective, we don't expect to get those yields. Even though we'll get some positive uptick from the reduction in interest rates on the savings book because that's now about 26% of the deposit book. But we saw a slight change in customer behavior in Q2, about 40% of the customers used to do more than 40 draws in a month and were not eligible for savings and interest payment. During the pandemic period, we saw that drop below 30%. And so the growth in interest expense between Q1 and Q2 was largely coming from the savings book. Slide 18 just shows a breakdown of OpEx. If you look at quarter-on-quarter numbers, you see the AMCON cost going up by NGN 6 billion because of the IFRIC 21. And then a reduction in most of the other expense lines, obviously, lower business offices cost due to the remote working protocols. On Slide 20, just shows an analysis of the funding base. Deposits moved up. It's now about 65% of total funding base from about 62% at the end of the financial year. Slide 21 shows the breakdown of the deposit book. Foreign currency deposits are now 21% of total deposits. In the last 6 months, it's been hovering around 23%, came down from NGN 320 billion to NGN 308 billion (sic) [ NGN 300.8 billion ] because of the FX challenges and customers using their own domiciliary deposits for some of their obligations. Slide 22, it's just a breakdown of our retail banking play. Strong growth from savings deposits, now at 26%. We saw the assets come down on a year-on-year basis. But on a quarter-on-quarter basis, it's picked up a little bit. We're still very conservative looking at that book because of the pressure on the consumer disposable income. Slide 23 shows a breakdown of the liquid assets position. We've tried to keep it short. We think the interest rate curve still normalizes going forward. Slide 24 shows a breakdown of the loan. A 7.5% growth, moved from NGN 1.1 trillion to NGN 1.267 trillion, about NGN 89 billion growth. In terms of key sectors responsible for the growth, you see the upstream, downstream and then midstream, which is the services. And then you also see some growth coming from the General Commerce group. Slide 25 shows a breakdown of the loan book into foreign currency and local currency. This is on the gross loan book. And from a gross loan book perspective, it's 43% foreign currency and 57% in local currency. On Slide 26, just shows a breakdown of the loan book into the various sectors. The Manufacturing, Upstream, Transport, Government, Power and General Commerce, those 6 sectors account for 70% of the loan book. Slide 27 is a deeper dive into the loan book. NGN 31 billion out of the growth in the loan book coming from the currency adjustment from NGN 364 to NGN 386. There's a drop in the local currency loan book, mainly coming from Manufacturing, Consumer Finance, Insurance and Public Sector. Slide 28 shows the breakdown of the loan book into Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3. And Stage 1 is about 72% of the book; Stage 2, about 23%; and Stage 3, which is the NPL book, is about 4.8%. In terms of coverage, the coverage ratio on the Stage 3 book is about 57% and about 5% on the Stage 1 book. Slide 29 speaks to the CBN forbearance. As Nnamdi said earlier, we're modeled using 4 parameters, any obligor who will require an interest rate review, a tenor extension, moratorium on principal or moratorium on interest. And we came up with 3 scenarios; best case scenario, moderate scenario and the worst-case scenario. So in the worst-case scenario, we're looking at 75% of the book. Currently, we've taken about 32.5% of the book, about 10% of that is from the public sector. And then the interventional loans, which about NGN 150 billion, that's about 12.5%, a chunk of that is the public sector book. So 10% from the public sector and about 22.5% from other sectors. If you look at the NPL book, it's gone up by about 58% looking at full year 2019 and H1 2020. So NPL is now at 4.8%, moved from NGN 38 billion, but we had already dimensioned this book in Q1, as we mentioned during our call. So the NPLs already jumped from NGN 38 billion to NGN 58 billion. Just about 11.5% of the NPLs coming from the FCY book, and then majority still comes from the local currency book. Slide 31 just looks at the movement in NPLs. And for most of the sectors, you have seen a growth, and this is due to the impact of the COVID-19 on each of the business segments. And then Slide 32 just shows a breakdown by currency. And Slide 33 shows a breakdown into each of the sectors. The key pressure points are the manufacturing, the transport and the oil and gas and downstream sector. During this period, we had to increase our probability of default and so that affects our expected credit losses on our Stage 1 and Stage 2 book. Typically, from a base scenario, we assume 80% moderate, 10% -- and worst-case scenario 10%. We had to change that to 50%, 10% and 4%. You will not see a lot of impairments coming in from the Stage 1 and Stage 2 book because after doing that we also increased the collateral coverage we had in each of those stages, looking at the impact it was going to have on the book. In terms of the breakdown of the NGN 7.8 billion impairments we had, about NGN 500 million was coming from the Stage 1 book. We had a write-back of about NGN 4 billion on the Stage 2 book and then about NGN 11.5 billion coming from the Stage 3 book. So that's how you get a total of NGN 7.8 billion impairments for H1. I'll go to Slide 34, which speaks to capital adequacy. It's come in at 18.8%. Regulatory adjustment has increased between 2019 full year and H1 2020, mainly due to the currency adjustment because the loan in question is a foreign currency loan. But if you look at it on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the regulatory adjustment dropped by 4.7%. We have a local currency bond, which is callable this year. We will be calling in the bond. We're obliged to give the bondholders maximum of 60 days notice and a minimum of 30 days notice. The coupon payment is in November. And so we will be calling it in, and we are likely to issue another bond. Issue size is likely to be between NGN 30 billion to NGN 50 billion, and we'll be looking at maturity of between 7 to 10 years. That should add 200 basis points from a capital perspective. Tier 1 capital is currently NGN 190 billion. And so we can take 1/3 of that as Tier 2. So if you look at a third of that, we're inching closer to NGN 65 billion and NGN 70 billion by the end of the year. And that's why we're doing a ticket size, which will most likely be NGN 50 billion. So we'll be calling in the bond, and then we'll be issuing another bond. All this will be done in Q4. Slide 35 shows a breakdown of revenues coming from the business segment, corporate and investment banking. Strong play for H1 because of the valuation gains we had on the treasury book. And then -- so about 40% coming from corporate and investment banking and then about 60% coming from our business offices. I'll go to last slide, which is Slide 37. And it just shows where we are on the guidance. We are on track on 8 of the indices. Net interest margin is at 6.4%. Tax rate is below the guidance. The loan growth, we're tracking on well. Deposit growth, we're above the guidance. Cost income ratio is 70% range. Dividends, not yet applicable. NPL ratio, below 5%. Cost of risk at 1.3%. Where we need a little upside is ROE, which is at 9.4%. We're tracking below the 11.3%. Like Nnamdi said, for H2 we expect the cost numbers to come in lower. We will not be taking in any AMCON cost. From a revenue perspective, we also don't expect to have the evaluation gains we had in H1. But net-net, we think that will be positive for us, also looking at the gains we should get from the reduction in the interest expense on the savings group. Thank you, and we'll now take questions.

Operator

operator
#4

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Toyosi Oni from Renaissance Capital.

Oluwatoyosi Oni

analyst
#5

Also congratulations to Nneka on her appointment. So I have a number of questions, and I'm just going to start from a sort of asset [ quality ] first. I wanted to understand better the nature of the Stage 2 loans and how these are performing right now. So do we see them migrating into Stage 3? Or are they going to be moving up? So if you could just give a bit more color on that. Also still on the Stage 2 loans, the coverage is about 5%. And I mean arguably, that's the trend we've seen across the industry. But I just wanted to understand more about this. It does seem a bit low, considering everything that's happening. And if you can just remind us of the terms of your restructured loans. You mentioned about 33% has been restructured. So the ones that have moratoriums or some extensions could you just give us the nature of these sort of restructuring? And for the ones that the moratorium period is going to be running out very soon, could you just say how these have been performing so far? Also, still on that point, you're currently in between your base and moderate case scenario, so where do we see this sort of settling by the end of the year? Then my next question is on your cost of risk. So the target for full year '20 is, I believe, 1.5%, and we're currently at 1.3%. So do we take it that the pace of impairment is going to start coming off going into the rest of the year? And my last question is on your non-funded income. So we saw a big drop in net fees and commissions, understandably. But then what has been the trend in Q3 as things start to perform? And could you give, I suppose, a more specific guidance on your NIR line going into the rest of the year?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#6

On the Stage 2 loans, if you look at the color of the Stage 2 loans out of the NGN 292 billion we have there, almost NGN 237 billion out of that is in the power sector and the oil and gas sector. Do we think they'll migrate to Stage 3? No. We think some of the things that have happened from a power perspective, in terms of the tariff, it's actually positive for the obligors we have in that sector. And for those we have in the energy space, for 1 or 2 of them, there's a big obligor there. I think it's a syndicated loan, and the syndicate is just waiting to complete the restructuring. In terms of do we see -- where do we see it migrating to over the period? I think if we look at our Stage 2 loans and in terms of the coverage at about 5%, what we've actually done in H1, like I said, we increased our probability of defaulters, which apparently affects the Stage 1 and Stage 2 book. And what we did was we also increased the collateral coverage on that book. So we think that shall be fine. In terms of the forbearance, yes, you're right, it's at 32% and we're within the base and moderate scenario. We think it should settle somewhere around the moderate scenario from an upside perspective. In terms of cost of risk at 1.3%, do we see it going up? Do we see it coming down. We think it's slightly stabilized. We think the worst of the pandemic is over. We're quite aggressive in H1. For some of the sectors, if you look at the breakdown of the impairments, actually -- for the Stage 2 book, we actually had a write-back on the Stage 2 book of about NGN 4 billion because of the increased collateral coverage, but from the Stage 3 book, we actually took total impairments on the Stage 3 book of about NGN 11.5 billion. So we're quite aggressive on the Stage 3 book from a H1 perspective. [indiscernible] we don't think we're going to comment about the cost of risk guidance. In terms of the non-funded income, we don't expect to see the kind of bump we saw in Q2 because of the spike in FX-related income on the valuation thing. However, for the other fee income line, the credit-related fees, e-banking fees, account maintenance fees and trade, we expect those to pick up in Q3 and Q4. Because they're mainly transactional income and for H1 they were really impacted by the slowdown in economic activities. So as economic activities pick up, we expect them to normalize and pick up.

Operator

operator
#7

The next question comes from Tunde Abidoye from FBNQuest Merchant Bank.

Tunde Abidoye

analyst
#8

So I have a couple of questions. And the first 1 is on the FCY component of your oil and gas book. So if I look at that component, it dropped to -- down to about 43% in H1 from 77% in Q1 2020. Please, can you provide some color on how you were able to reduce that component so fast, particularly since the book actually moved up by around 9% during the quarter? Then I noticed that there are no NPLs for the oil and gas upstream exposure. Can you provide some color on this given the significant reduction we saw with oil prices in Q2? I mean just by way of context, one of the indigenous upstream firms reported a loss before tax of about $50 million during the quarter. So I'm just wondering how the NPL tool play for this line. I think that's all for now.

Gbolahan Joshua

executive
#9

Okay. So I'll start with the second question. In terms of the NPL on the oil and gas upstream book. If you look at Slide 28, you look at oil and gas upstream book. You see that even though there are no NPLs from a Stage 2 perspective, about 50% of the portfolio is in Stage 2. So 50% of the portfolio is in Stage 2 because we had seen some weaknesses in some of the obligors in terms of missing 1 or 2 repayments. So in terms of days past due, it's not yet sufficient for them to be in Stage 3 and that is why they are in Stage 2. The first question was on the FCY component. If you look at the FCY component of the oil and gas book, and that's on Slide 25, you see that for the upstream book it's basically total FCY. Where you'll have seen the material change is in the downstream book. And that's because what you see now is that below this obligor they buy directly from PPMC, so there's been quite a shift in the transaction dynamics in that market.

Operator

operator
#10

The next question comes from Randolph Oosthuizen from Old Mutual Investment.

Randolph Oosthuizen;Old Mutual Investment Group;Analyst

analyst
#11

Congratulations on the result. And also, I must say that was the most efficient presentation I've ever listened to. So that's well done. We enjoyed that. Just some questions on the bond that you're now going to call and reissue. How much do you expect you to save on pricing? I would imagine that, that should be quite a bit cheaper now. If you can just give some numbers around that. Then you mentioned that you don't expect another eval gain, so does that mean you're not expecting the currency to move until the end of the year, so sort of NGN 386 being the current level. Then I was just curious, have you done an exercise to work out if it hadn't been for the bankers' tariff review, what your fee income would have been? So sort of the amount in naira or else equal, if the bankers' tariffs weren't revised down. I'm just curious to know what -- how much that -- what the cost or the impact to that have been on your numbers?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#12

Okay. Thank you. I'll start from the last question. If the fees had remained the same, we should have seen about a 35% to 40% growth in our electronic banking income just based on the increased customer adoption and then in terms of the total number of transactions across each of the channels. In terms of revaluation, looking at the currency, if we look at what has happened over the last few weeks and what we moved out is that there will not be any major adjustment. If there's a major adjustment, that's a positive upside for us from a revenue perspective, while it also has a few implications for us also from a capital perspective. What we modeled that basically it remains at about the present level up until the end of the year, not anything significant or material. In terms of the bond issuance, I can't give you specifics in terms of pricing. Obviously, typically, we see a premium on the applicable sovereign. In terms of the tenor, we're going to use it. Just looking at where rates are now, rates are much lower compared to it, so this present bond at about 16.48%. If we look at the applicable bonds for 5 to 10 years, we're looking at the high single digits and then the low double digits. While the market changes very fast, and we don't know what the market dynamics will be in that 6 to 8 weeks, where we should be coming to the market. But all things being equal, it should be cheaper from an interest expense perspective to us.

Randolph Oosthuizen;Old Mutual Investment Group;Analyst

analyst
#13

Okay. All right. And then just 1 quick question is on AMCON. Have you got any view on when that will end?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#14

Well, we have no view on when it will end for now in terms of the -- how long the organization is going to stay or how long bank is going to keep on paying for it. So we just moved out that, and it just continues operating as an entity. That's how we've moved out for now.

Operator

operator
#15

The next question comes from Muyiwa Oni from Standard Bank.

Muyiwa Oni

analyst
#16

Thank you for the presentation and congratulations on Nneka's appointment. I have few questions. I think the first is on your retail loans. So I think you highlighted in one of the slides, I think on Page 22, on proprietary online platform and things like driving out retails groups. So suppose if you could share a split between how much is proprietary, how much is from your fintech partners? And then also maybe share how much of your total retail loan book of NGN 51 billion is related to the online platform because I suspect that it could be -- likely that is not all of which that you could share, share the size of that. And then secondly, in your customer growth, I see the numbers are much more sluggish this year relative to last year, so of about 100,000 over the last 6 months versus last year, where there was about 300,000 increase. So I would like to share what your view is on in terms of growth going forward. I suspect the lockdown that had a negative impact on this what expectations is the end of the year. And then if you could also share color on active and dormant customers as well. And then thirdly, just trying to get your view on the competitive landscape. Wondering if you're exploring thoughts of going into all that nonbanking financial services, et cetera, with just looking at competition and what's happening in there.

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#17

Okay. Muyiwa, thank you for your kind words. Let me start with the last one about whether we're going into other areas. By our strategic plan, we'll remain a bank for now. As you know, we have a 5-year strategic plan that would be completed in 2022. After that or about the end of that time, we'll strategize. For now, we are staying focused at just a bank until then. Thank you.

Gbolahan Joshua

executive
#18

Okay. I'll take the other 2 questions. In terms of customer growth, so last year, it averaged about 60,000, 65,000 on a monthly basis. This year, it slowed down significantly, averaged about 20,000, 22,000 on a monthly basis. What we've seen after the pandemic coming into Q3, the numbers are back up to about 40,000 range on a monthly basis. In terms of dormancy, what we have, it's about 35% of the customers, especially at the much lower mass market end are dormant, 35% of them. In terms of the loan book, giving color to the retail loan book, what we have on the retail loan book is NGN 51 billion. Those are the loans we booked directly from our balance sheet. So the partnerships we have with the fintechs, they carry the credit risk, and then what we do is the revenue share. So we do the customer mining with them and the algorithm in terms of profiling the customer, the guided credit risk and then what we have with them is the revenue share.

Operator

operator
#19

The next question comes from Edward-John Bottomley from REDD Intelligence.

Edward-John Bottomley

analyst
#20

I just want to ask on the bond. Is it the local one that you plan to redeem? And the bond that you plan to issue is that similar in nature?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#21

Yes. Thank you. It's the local bond that we're trying to redeem, and we'll be reissuing a local bond as well.

Operator

operator
#22

Edward, do you have any further questions?

Edward-John Bottomley

analyst
#23

Just with that, the -- on that -- so will the bond be subordinated or not. Sorry if I [indiscernible].

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#24

Yes, it will be subordinated.

Operator

operator
#25

The next question comes from Wale Okunrinboye from Sigma Pensions.

Adewale Okunrinboye;Sigma Pensions Ltd;Investment Analyst

analyst
#26

My first question is on interest rates. What's your view on where interest rates are likely headed? How do you see your NIMs, your net interest margins evolving, not just this year, but maybe also -- maybe into next year? If -- because I'm just trying to just get a grasp as to where is your view on interest rate direction, given what CBN has done by reducing minimum savings rate to 1%. Do you think you'd see a scenario -- given where your average lending rate of 11%, do you -- is it more likely that you'd be willing to drop your average lending rates to at least -- if we try and grow more volumes on the loan side? Or do you think you'll still try and maintain your average lending rates around where they are? Or do you see that also coming down just because of what's going on in the environment? My next question is also on your loan growth. So you're going to recall your board and issue a new one. Is it -- are you seeing -- do you see more room for growth in the current environment? How much offset do you think your balance sheet would be able to still support going forward? Third question is on your -- what's your effective cash reserve ratio as at the end of H1? And then lastly, what's your -- are you still going to maintain your dividend guidance or your dividend policy? Do you see any changes over 2020?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#27

Okay. Dividend policy, let me start from there. We stay with our guidance of 30% to 50% payout. And then risk asset growth of -- our risk asset growth projections, if you look at the numbers, we're looking, I would say, between 5% to 7.5% that's already guided. If you look at our H1 numbers, we're at 7-point -- 4.5%, if you discount the valuation, the revaluation addition of 2.8%. So we are staying with our guidance of between 5% to 7.5%.

Gbolahan Joshua

executive
#28

Okay. For CRR, it's effectively 44%. So total cash reserve is about NGN 47 billion. Local currency deposits is about NGN 1.1 trillion. Now I said, we also have loans refunded from the [ DCCR ] scheme of about NGN 70 billion. So if you net that off the NGN 487 billion, you arrive at about NGN 417 billion and then you get an effective rate of about 28% if you discount that.

Adewale Okunrinboye;Sigma Pensions Ltd;Investment Analyst

analyst
#29

Last question was on interest.

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#30

Okay. Good. In terms of interest rate, if you recall, during the presentation, we said even though NIM came in at 6.4% for H1, we think it's going to trend lower towards the end of the year for 2 reasons. We've still got some of the fixed income instruments we bought -- the 1 year instruments we bought last year that's maturing this year. There's higher-yielding instruments. We don't expect to see those kind of yields from a reinvestment perspective, that's number one. Number two, for some of the customers we're giving a forbearance, obviously, some of them come with an interest rate reduction. So we should see a little pressure on interest rates coming from there. In terms of the positive, the positive will be in terms of the savings book because of 26% of the book. The reduction in interest rates should give about 20 basis points accretion to NIM. But net-net, we think interest rates are going to come down from a NIM perspective. We expect to see a lower NIM in H2.

Operator

operator
#31

[Operator Instructions] Nnamdi, we have no further questions in the queue. Do you have any closing comments before we conclude?

Nnamdi Okonkwo

executive
#32

Okay. Thank you. Just to say that we'll continue to work hard in the midst of pandemic. I look forward to delivering the numbers we had spoken about revising our PBT downwards by 15%. Business activities have resumed a bit earlier than we expected. However, because it's not yet certain, we would stay within that guidance. So on that note, we continue to work hard, and thank you for attending this meeting. We look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

operator
#33

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.

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