OPERATIONAL UPDATE
Commodity price gains ease Standard Banks's bad debts
Africa’s largest lender by assets reports impairment charges declined compared with those of the first quarter of 2016
Standard Bank’s bad debts looked better in the first quarter as its mortgage book continued to improve. The recovery in the commodities sector resulted in its corporate and investment banking unit setting aside less cash for bad debts. In an operational update on Tuesday, Africa’s largest lender by assets said impairment charges had declined compared with those of the first quarter of 2016, showing that its strategy to remain in the domestic mortgage market in 2011 when other providers were pulling back, was still paying off. Loans to debt-laden corporate customers in the rest of Africa were being paid up as commodity prices recovered. Richard Hasson, co-head of Electus Fund Managers, said the bad-debt improvements in Standard’s mortgage book had been a "continuing trend" for the past few years, so the main reason for the first quarter’s better impairment results was the performance of the corporate and investment bank. "[The corporate and investment bank] had high provisions in the...
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