The United Bank for Africa, UBA, has announced that it granted N113 billion to different investors towards the acquisition of power assets in the country. Phillips Oduoza, group managing director of the bank, said beside the power sector, the bank also invested in the blossoming telecommunications sector. On agriculture, he added that it has continued to channel resources to the sector, given that it remains the mainstay of most economies in Africa. “UBA has a deliberate policy to continue to fund agriculture. Our lending to the sector is already above the industry average. We are doing about 7 per cent of our total portfolio in agriculture,” he said.

UBA operates in 19 African countries and Oduoza said all the branches of the bank in those countries “all of them are doing very well.” He explained that 14 out of the 18 subsidiaries of the group across Africa have started returning profits. However, Oduoza explained that Nigeria still remains the dominant contributor to the UBA Group’s bottom line making up an average of 75 per cent of the Group’s balance sheet while the rest of Africa contributes 25 per cent.