African Bank group has grown its profit at the halfway stage of the financial year as it reported a 6% rise in the number of customers its services on its platforms to 6.1-million.
Net profit after tax for the six months ended March was 15% higher at R202m, it said in a statement on Monday.
The group reported net advances of R39.1bn, up 20% year on year, with business and commercial growing 49% while personal banking advanced a modest 3%.
Interest income increased 6% to R3.7bn, positively affected by the growth in the business and commercial loans book.
The group said the cost of funding continued to be well managed at 7.9%. Noninterest income (net of related card and transaction fee costs) grew by 39% to R909m as usage of the transactional MyWORLD and credit card accounts by customers increased.
Net insurance income increased by 8% to R308m, with the improvement of claims management.
Operating expenses increased 16% as the group continued to invest in its transformation journey to build a data and digitally enabled fully-fledged personal and business & commercial bank.
Credit impairment charges improved by 10% to R1.2bn, resulting in a reduction in the credit loss ratio to 5.3% from 6.6%, following the intentional book diversification to secured business and commercial lending, and improved credit risk management including regular book sales aligned to industry practice in personal banking, it said.
The group said it would continue its focus on driving growth and building on its solid financial position, in line with its Excelerate strategy, which focuses on building a fully-fledged bank.
“We remain confident that we will deliver on our mission of building a customer centric, data and digitally enabled diversified business that is scalable and sustainable and that will have a compelling listing proposition in the future,” it said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.