Nedbank Group headline earnings hike by 20%
MBABANE – Nedbank Group yesterday posted a 20 per cent rise in headline earnings to E14 billion.
Outside South Africa, Nedbank operates in five countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), through subsidiaries and banks in Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Zimbabwe.
This was revealed by Nedbank Africa Regions (NAR) Managing Executive Dr. Terence Sibiya, in a virtual press conference conducted yesterday at Nedbank Eswatini head offices in Mbabane.
“The NAR business delivered a good set of results driven by an improved performance from SADC operations and strong earnings from Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) associate investment, partially offset by providing for the estimated impact of the Ghanaian sovereign debt restructure programme that was initiated in December 2022,” he said.
Sibiya also mentioned that the cost-to-income ratio decreased from 73.7 per cent in 2021 to 67.3 per cent, and the cost-to-income ratio of SADC operations also improved to 77.7 per cent (2021: 84.9 per cent).
He said expenses were diligently managed in an environment of rising inflation and weaker exchange rates, even as they increased by nine per cent to E2.751 million, driven by growth in employee costs from higher employee incentives.
“Some key achievements of the NAR business include the increased contribution from our SADC operations to overall NAR headline earnings and strong earnings from Ecobank Transnational Incorporated’s (ETI) associate investment.
“Strong growth in digitally active clients