By Ngozi Onyeakusi—- United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc Monday, released its unaudited results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021, showing impressive double-digit growth across major income lines. The bank leveraged modest growth in both interest and non-interest income as well as increased efficiency to deliver an impressive 24 per cent year-on-year growth in Profit Before Tax in the first three months of the 2021 financial year to N40.6 billion compared with N32.7 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2020. Profit After Tax also grew by 26.8 per cent from N30.1 billion in March 2020 to N38.2 billion in the period under review. Interestingly, UBA again sustained its strong profitability recording an annualised 20.5 per cent Return on Average Equity (RoAE) compared to 19.9 per cent in the same period of 2020. Driven by a year-on-year growth in interest income, UBA Group recorded another impressive 5.5 per cent percent year-on-year growth in Gross Earnings to close at N155.4 billion for the three-month period ending March 2021, compared to N147.2 billion recorded in the first three months of last year 2020. The bank’s total assets also rose by 2.5per cent to N7.9 trillion in the period under review, compared to N7.7 trillion recorded at the end of the 2020 financial year, whilst shareholders’ funds grew to N762.4 billion up by 5.3 per cent from N724.1 billion as at FY 2020