It is that time of the year again when the Nedbank Group releases its interim financial results.
The bank will today present its financial results in a press conference taking place at its boardroom.
This was announced by the bank through a series of updates on their websites and communication department.
Worth mentioning is that Nedbank Eswatini Limited’s Headline Earnings for the 6 months ended June 30, 2023, were E65.2 million while in 2022 they were E50 million.
In the interim period ended June 30, 2023, the Bank’s net interest income improved by 30%.
Whilst the underlying asset loans and advances only increased by 2%, the bank’s income from lending benefitted from the cumulative 325 basis points rise in interest rates over the last 12 months.
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The bank has also benefited from interest earned on investments that include treasury bills and bonds over the same period
The impairment charge for the year increased to E39.5 million (2022: E20.2 million). With the consecutive increases in interest rates, customers within the consumer and SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) segments’ ability to service their debt has deteriorated, which has led to increased impairments.
It is worth noting that over and above the impact of the higher interest rates, SMEs exposed to the sovereign were impacted by the delays in payments by the government.
During this time Nedbank announced that they anticipate this arrears situation to improve, following the commitment by the Ministry of Finance to pay government suppliers in July 2023.
The Bank continued to pursue the model of migrating its customers onto digital platforms as well as landing new digital solutions such as Mobi money, thus increasing non-interest revenues by 6% to E95.9 million (2022: E90.6 million).
The growth in non-interest revenue through volumes was hampered by new regulations which placed a ceiling on revenue charged on loan establishment fees which came into effect on January 1, 2023.