The Umuchinemere Pro-credit Micro Finance Bank Nigeria Limited Enugu (UPMFB) is paying 5kobo dividend per share to its shareholders in the 2017 financial year ended.

This followed the shareholders’ unanimous approval of the bank’s 5kobo dividend proposal at its just held 23rd Annual General Meeting in Enugu.

But for certain circumstances occasioned by the resultant effects of bad loans that affected the bank’s performance in the year under review, the dividend payable would have been more.

Chairman of the bank and prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, Monsignor Anthony Chukwuma Anijielo, told the shareholders that  bad loans is a major factor militating against the banking sector in Nigeria and that Umuchinemere Pro-credit Micro Finance Bank is a major victim of the development, as it adversely affected the bank’s performance in 2017 financial year.

Condemning the general malaise of non-repayment of loans, otherwise referred to as portfolios at risk (PAR), in the industry and calling for its eradication from the country’s financial system, the bank chief said that UPMFB was putting certain measures in check to mitigate the high incidence of portfolios at risk prevalent in the bank sector.

He said for instance that Umuchinemere bank’s “use of the services of credit bureau has enabled the organisation to avoid to a reasonable extent having borrowers with multiple borrowings from other financial institutions.”

Msgr Anijielo explained that aggressive loans recovery exercise which the bank’s staff members embark on regularly in clusters of a team has assumed a primary role in saving the life of the bank.

He appealed to the indebted customers not to wait until legal actions are taken by the bank to recover their loans but to spare themselves such embarrassments by repaying their loans promptly.

The bank recorded a sharp drop in profit in 2017 due to bad loans. The bank’s net profit after taxation at the end of its operations in 2017 stood at N20,450, 744, as against the figure of N38,161,709 the previous year, “a drop that is attributable loans not repaired as at when due”, according to the outgoing external auditors of the bank, Ralph Anyama and Compnay.

Anyama appealed to the defaulting loan borrowers of the bank to “kindly pay back the loans to enable the bank to move on.”

However, in view of the Central Bank’s new policy raising the capitalisation figures for microfinance banks, the UPMFB chairman told his audience that they have begun the process of recapitalising the bank to meet the deadline.

He implored the investors to increase their investments, stressing that “If all the investors will increase their investments in the bank, we will become a national bank.”