FNB Financial Highlights:
- Pre-tax profits up 11%
- Strong contribution from Retail, Commercial and Rest of Africa
- Domestic customer numbers at 8.2 million
- Digital platform providing new growth opportunities
- Upsell and cross-sell drove advances growth
- Targeted advances growth to existing client base
- NIR up by 11% in a difficult market
- Video and podcast link of Jacques Celliers, FNB CEO: https://we.tl/t-DcicqlZP5H
FNB has once again produced excellent results, with strong performances from across the business. A consistent strategic focus on cross and upsell to existing clients resulted in an uplift in deposit and lending volumes with customer numbers at 8.2 million.
Commenting on the results, Jacques Celliers, FNB CEO, said: “Our digital interface continued to offer us fresh growth opportunities, with APP logins topping 45.5 million in June this year. Sales and client interactions continue to grow on our digital platforms and we are delighted that clients have embraced the opportunity to engage on these interfaces.”
The 11% growth in profits benefitted from strong results from Retail and Commercial with contributions up 8% and 13% respectively. Profits, from Rest of Africa, increased 31% largely in line with the trajectory seen in the first half of the financial year.
Retail was buoyed by exceptional performance from the transactional business where improved volumes and upsell drove revenue. Targeted platform-based lending activity also drove strong advances growth. Insurance and Investment activities were beneficiaries of strong client adoption with revenues growing in both areas.
Rest of Africa benefitted from solid deposit growth of 8% and targeted lending with key countries also experiencing strong growth in transactional volumes. FNB retained its position as the largest retail deposit franchise in South Africa. Debit and credit card swipes volumes grew 11% and volumes across the card acquiring business saw a 17% uplift in transactions processed, excellent growth in trying market conditions.
The credit performance held up well despite the weak macroeconomic environment. Bad debts have largely tracked book growth, as anticipated the lengthening of write-off periods under IFRS9 has inflated non-performing loans stats, but the underlying credit performance is in line with the bank’s expectations.
“We are committed to being a trusted partner to our customers by providing platform based financial solutions. This allows us to drive cross and upsell opportunities that continue to deliver product take up (VSI) across the segments,” says Celliers.
The performance of FNB’s digital interface again highlights its ability to shift client behaviour:
- APP transaction up 45%
- Digital sales dominate growth story
- Insurance, FNB Connect and Investment pillars enabled on Digital
- nav» Money, Home and Car all growing client migrations
“We are expanding our leadership position in our scaled and trusted data-rich platform, enabled through our banking relationship. Clearly this requires us to ensure that we get our activities into platform for increased leverage of big data toolsets and technology to help customers navigate their financial journey,” concludes Celliers.
Life Insurance experienced strong growth with recurring premiums up 26% and policy count is now above 4.1 million. The short-term insurance business commenced writing business on its own license during the year; this provides another platform for future growth.
FNB continued to improve accessibility to banking infrastructure, with eWallet send volumes growing 19% to 46 million transactions. Total value transmitted was over R25bn for the year with regular recipients continuing to grow. During the year eWallet eXtra was launched, the product which provides for send, receive and payment capabilities has accumulated 140 000 active clients.
FNB’s focus on SMEs saw further lending extended to this valuable segment of the economy now top R37.8bn. Enterprise and supplier development initiatives continued to bear fruit and FNB is delighted to note job creation through these initiatives. Our commitment to youth employment saw over 1000 individuals join our FirstJob initiative and this investment will be repeated in the year ahead.
The Bank’s public-private partnership continued to produce great results and improved experiences for clients, particularly noteworthy is the 185 000 IDs and passports issued for clients through working partnership with the Department of Home Affairs. nav» Car continues to facilitate clients’ license renewal and traffic fine payment.
