JOHANNESBURG(Reuters) – South African lender FirstRand said on Thursday its half-year profit rose by 41%, closer to the lower range of its guidance of between 40% and 45%, as it recovers from the COVID-19 crisis.
The bank said its headline earnings per share – the main profit measure in South Africa – stood at 281.4 cents ($0.1835) in the six months to Dec. 31, compared to 198.9 cents reported a year earlier.
It declared an interim dividend of 157 cents per share.
Banks in South Africa, often considered to be well capitalised and conservative, had taken hefty provisions when the coronavirus crisis hit in 2020.
However, with the economy rebounding sooner than they had expected, many of the expected write-downs never happened, which in turn boosted profits.
FirstRand, which is the biggest bank in the continent in terms of market capitalisation, posted net interest income (NII) of 33.48 billion rand, up 5% from the same period a year ago.
NII is a bank’s most important metric as it shows the amount it made through interest income, after paying interest on the deposits it holds.
($1 = 15.3357 rand)
(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Kim Coghill)
