PWC REPORT
South African banks ride the uncertainty and get 11.6% growth
SA’s four largest banks managed 11.6% growth in headline earnings for the financial period to end-December 2017, despite policy and economic uncertainty, says PwC.The professional services firm’s Major Banks Analysis report shows Barclays Africa, Nedbank, FirstRand and Standard Bank collectively grew earnings to R76.1bn for their financial years to December (six months to December for FirstRand), benefiting from an 8.1% decline in combined bad debts.This came as banks impaired fewer loans across portfolios and resolved legacy issues at their corporate and investment banks, PwC said.At Barclays Africa the charge from soured loans fell 20% to R7bn, led by the SA corporate and investment banking, rest of Africa banking, and home-loan portfolios. These helped lower Barclay’s credit loss ratio – which measures losses relative to gross loans – to 0.87%, the lowest since 2014.Nedbank’s credit loss ratio fell outside its 0.6% to 1% target range at 0.49%, underpinned by improvements in relat...
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