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Johannesburg – First National Bank – a unit of FirstRand –
says its business and premium segments drove it to a 6 percent increase in
profits before tax.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the bank says it saw good
growth in deposits and continued traction in its save and invest
strategies in the six months to December. Profits from the operations in the rest of Africa fell on the
back of credit issues especially in Zambia and Mozambique due to difficult
macro business conditions, it says.
“We are pleased with the 6 percent growth in the overall
domestic customer base, with some 12 percent growth in overall transactional
volumes and especially with the pace at which our digital platforms continue
being adopted with app volumes up a respectable 80% year-on-year,” says FNB CEO
Jacques Celliers.
FNB had standout performances in its Business and Premium
Segments as a result of customer base growth and further entrenchment and share
of wallet across the respective segments with
Commercial producing a 16 percent increase in profits, it
says.
Read also: FNB expands insurance base
FNB notes, however, growth in advances was deliberately
slowed across all categories of lending in line with the bank’s more
conservative lending stance given the weaker macros with impairment results in
line with expectations.
“Looking forward, we can see that improvements in the
underlying economy and our vigorous efforts to contain costs for the bank will
yield positive outcomes for our customers. We remain committed to our
operations in the rest of Africa and to our start-up business in Ghana,” adds Celliers.
Meanwhile, FirstRand CEO, Johan Burger, says “the group continued its delivery of
real growth in earnings and premium returns off a long track record of
outperformance”.
FirstRand
reported a 7 percent gain in diluted normalised earnings per share of 207.6c,
while normalised earnings came in at R11.6 billion.
It declared
a 119c a share dividend, 10 percent gain year-on-year.
Burger
says the growth was driven by solid operational performances from its
franchises and “is a very satisfactory outcome given the level of ongoing
investment in new growth initiatives, which is expected to deliver
outperformance in the medium term and the level of conservatism applied to the
balance sheet”.
FirstRand
added it will not chase growth at the expense of returns.