First Bank set to fire 1,000 of its workers

FBN Holdings Plc, the parent company of First Bank Nigeria Limited, is planning to cut about 1000 jobs and focus less on providing loans to the oil industry in a bid to reverse  the 2015 financial year’s 82 per cent slump in profit.

The lender expects to boost its return on equity, a key measure of profitability, to between 11 per cent and 14 per cent in 2016 from last year’s “really bad” figure of three per cent, according to the Chief Executive Officer of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, FBN’s main subsidiary, Mr. Adesola Adeduntan.

He said the company was also targeting a cost-to-income ratio of 55 per cent in two years time from 59 per cent, Bloomberg reported.