Standard Bank reports double-digit interest income growth

South Africa’s largest lender Standard Bank reports that income earned from interest resulted in double-digit growth during the 10 months to end-October 2022, with the bank citing high-interest rates in most of the markets it operates in, and balance sheet growth as the main drivers.

“FY22 total income growth and cost growth are expected to be higher than guided in August 2022. This is driven principally by faster-than-expected increases in interest rates and higher inflation. However, we do expect continued positive jaws,” Standard Bank told shareholders in a trading update on Monday.

This year many economies around the world moved to tighten monetary policy, with central banks aggressively hiking interest rates to fight off rocketing inflation.

In the local market, the Reserve Bank has lifted the repurchase rate by a cumulative 325 basis points to 7%, from 3.75% at the beginning of 2022. By mid-year, inflation had peaked at 7.8% and slowed slightly to 7.6% in October.

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Angola and Zambia were the only markets in which the bank operates where interest rates were not raised. Angola saw interest rates decrease by 50 basis points, while in Zambia they remained flat.

“Non-interest revenue growth remained robust, supported by growth in transactional activity, trading revenue, and insurance earnings,” said Standard Bank.

Earnings growth in its insurance business was helped by higher fees from annual fee increments and its funeral policy programme performed well, while it had lower credit life claims compared with the prior period.

The group remains well capitalised and liquid and is on track to deliver on its target to achieve compound annual revenue growth of 7% to 9%, the lender said.

Across the group, credit impairment charges increased.

The bank’s share price dropped 0.68% to R197 on Monday morning.