FIRST City Monument Bank (FCMB) half-year (H1) 2025 profit jumped 23.43 percent to N73.422 billion from N59.484 billion reported in the corrresponding period of 2024.

However, penalties outpaced the profits in percentages, though lower in nominal terms in the period under review. Penalties rose to N490.190 million from N24.150 million, representing a 20-fold increase over the one-year period. In percentages, it stood at nearly 2000 percent rise over the period.

Penalties are often imposed by the regulator – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – on financial institutions for violations such as foreign exchange (FX) infractions, inability to beat deadlines, among others. Some penalties are also imposed on Nigerian banks overseas for violations of countries’ financial guidelines.

READ ALSO: How FCMB fraud losses jumped 106-fold in a decade

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) was fined an equivalent of N1.297 billion in Ghana in the second quarter (Q2) of 2024 for breaching foreign exchange market operational guidelines, according to the bank’s Q2 2024 financial statement analysed earlier by Economy Post.

In Rwanda, GTB was fined an equivalent of N311,000 in the same period for “non compliance with the exchange rate applied by commercial banks.” GTB was equally fined for taking certain fees that were not allowed possibly by the National Bank of Rwanda, which is the banking regulator in the East African nation.

Similarly, Zenith Bank Plc paid N15.428 billion in penalties to the CBN for 10 different violations in the 2024 financial year, including foreign exchange, cybersecurity and anti-money laundering infractions, according to the Tier-1 bank’s 2024.

Wema Bank had also found itself on the wrong side of 7 Nigerian laws in 2023, paying penalties totalling N61.350 million in one year.

FCMB’s fraud, forgery cases

Economy Post had earlier reported that fraudsters and forgers hit FCMB in 10 years to 2024 as losses to the unscrupulous individuals and entities jumped 106 times over the period, according to analyses of the bank’s decade-long financial statements.

The bank’s losses to fraudsters and forgers persisted despite the bank increasing its information technology (IT) expenditure 9 times over the period.

According to the annual reports, the bank lost just N24 million to fraudsters and forgers in 2014. However, the losses jumped 106 times to N1.408 billion in 2024, representing 5,763 percent increase over the 10-year period.

FCMB lost N24 million to fraud and forgery in 2014, N13.246 million in 2015, N16.411 million in 2016, N6,399 million in 2017, and N93.499 million in 2018.

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Similarly, fraudsters and forgers hit again in 2019, stealing N212.263 million from the bank. The financial institution lost N89.856 million to fraudsters and forgers in 2020, N123.083 million in 2021, and N59.035 in 2022.

The fraud numbers of the last two financial years showed the menacing attack of fraudsters and forgers on FCMB, with the tier-2 bank losing N828.407 million in 2023 and N1.408 billion in 2024.

As of 2014, FCMB’s spent N2.996 billion on IT, which jumped 9 times to N26.329 billion in 2024. By implication, the amount spent by the financial institution on IT increased by 779 percent in the 10-year period.

FCMB’s upsides

However, it is not all gloom and doom for the bank, which raised its FGN bonds trading income by 84 percent to N8.729 billion from N4.74 billion reported in the corresponding period of 2024.

Its net interest interest income nearly doubles to N207.409 billion from N106.189 billion reported in the corresponding period of 2024. Net interest income is the difference between interest revenue and interest expenditure. For instance, banks earn interest on loans, bonds, mortgages and other investments but pay interest on borrowed funds and to depositors’ fixed deposits and savings accounts.

The bank also raised its gross earnings (income) to N529.203 billion from N374.467 billion in the same period of 2024.