ABSA IMPROVES PROFIT IN H1
Absa Bank Botswana recorded improved profit in the first half of 2022 due to reduced credit losses and increase in interest income.
Despite the challenging economic conditions, the bank’s credit loss reduced by 72 percent to P13 million and profit increased to P395 million.
Presenting the results, Absa Bank Managing Director, Keabetswe Pheko-Moshagane said they enhanced the bank’s credit policy to adapt it to the current economic environment and business climate. “This was aimed at supporting our customers to ease into recovering from the effects of COVID-19 and realise their growth ambitions.”
She highlighted that the bank is alive to the hardships that have impacted customers, particularly those in the retail and business banking segments. High inflation and rising interest rates have significantly eroded customers’ purchasing power and their ability to save.
“To this effect, we eased the burden on our customers by enhancing our loyalty and rewards programme that offers additional discounts such as internet connection for customers to stay connected, home assist, which is a company that does various house maintenance duties, and healthcare services such as optometry and pharmacies to ease pressure on the ever-growing health-care costs.”
For her part, Absa Bank Financial Director, Cynthia Morapedi said the bank maintained strong liquidity position during the first half of the year despite prevailing market challenges. “Our performance echoes our customers and shareholders’ confidence in our Absa brand. We would not have achieved such pleasing results
without the unwavering support and resilience of our customers as well as the dedication and commitment of our employees.” She said the expected credit losses performance remains contained, despite the growth in loan book, owing to effective and efficient credit risk management frameworks. “This current performance in our impairments is owing to portfolio stability and prudent risk management across all segments as well as robust credit modelling.”