South African (SA) lender Absa Group posted a 12.25% rise in full-year headline earnings on Tuesday, as credit impairments declined and the Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) and Africa regions units reported growth.
The country’s third-biggest lender by assets posted headline earnings of $1.51 billion in the year ended on December 31.
Revenue grew by 5% to $7 094 billion, supported by strong non-interest income growth and a moderate net interest income performance, despite modest retail loan growth and margin compression, Absa said.
From a geographic perspective, its 11 rest of Africa businesses delivered noticeably stronger earnings growth than SA, driven by solid pre-provision profit growth and continued customer expansion, the firm said.
“SA benefited from a meaningful improvement in credit impairments across several portfolios,” the lender said.
Overall impairments decreased 6% to $1 3400 million, with the group’s credit loss ratio, a measure of bad loans against total loans, improving to 88 basis points, the mid-point of Absa’s target range when compared to 103 basis points in 2024.
The group declared a final dividend of 850 cents per share.
–Reuters–
