Absa posts 12% rise in annual earnings

Source: Reuters.

The country's third-biggest lender by assets posted headline earnings of R24.7bn ($1.51bn) in the year ended on 31 December. Pre-provision profit increased 4% to R53.5bn.

Revenue grew by 5% to R115.7bn, 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 South Africa, driven by solid pre-provision profit growth and continued customer expansion, the firm said.

"South Africa benefited from a meaningful improvement in credit impairments across several portfolios," the lender said.

Overall impairments decreased 6% to R13.4bn, 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.

($1 = R16.3304)