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ABKI and ABLI - The Audited Annual Financial results for the African Bank Holdings Limited and African Bank Limited
AFRICAN BANK LIMITED
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)
(Registered Bank)
(Registration No. 2014/176899/06)
LEI: 2549008X8SL1B1J86F98
Company code: ABKI
(the "Bank" or "African Bank")
AFRICAN BANK HOLDINGS LIMITED
(Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa)
(Registration No.: 2014/176855/06)
Company code: ABLI
LEI: 254900UUEMIK0XL5A056
("ABHL" or the "Group")
RELEASE OF THE AUDITED ANNUAL FINANCIAL RESULTS FOR THE CONSOLIDATED AFRICAN BANK HOLDINGS LIMITED GROUP, AND RELATED
AFRICAN BANK LIMITED INFORMATION FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2025
African Bank Holdings Limited ("ABHL" or "African Bank Group") is pleased to announce that the ABHL Group and its subsidiary
company, African Bank Limited ("ABL" or "Bank"), released their audited annual financial statements for the year ended
30 September 2025 ("FY 25") ("Group consolidated results", and "Bank consolidated results" respectively) today. The prior year
comparative annual financial statements are for the year ended 30 September 2024 ("FY 24"). The comprehensive ABHL Group
consolidated results are addressed first, followed by the Bank consolidated results.
DIVERSIFICATION EFFORTS CONTINUE, WHILST BUILDING CAPABILITIES AND ESTABLISHING ORGANIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH
In our 50th year of operation, African Bank continued executing its Excelerate strategy to establish a fully-fledged Bank,
offering competitive and relevant solutions across Personal and Business & Commercial banking. Over the past four years, we
have made significant strides in diversifying our business and positioning ourselves for sustainable growth.
While earnings were below expectations, they reflect the strategic investments made to embed a new target operating model
and integrate acquired businesses, systems, and processes. These efforts, though operationally and financially challenging,
were essential in transitioning the Bank from a monoline retail lender in 2021 to a full-service Bank in 2025. We pursued
swift expansion, embracing operational complexity to build long-term capabilities. This included leveraging organic strengths,
forming strategic partnerships for faster market entry and acquiring assets to enhance our service offering.
Our focus remained on consolidation, integration, and strategic alignment to drive efficiency, strengthen risk management,
enhance system capabilities, and embed critical skills across the organisation. Enabling us to continue delivering to more than
six million customers who continue to transact, borrow, invest, and insure with us, affirming our relevance and competitiveness
in the South African market.
During the period October 2024 to September 2025, the South African Reserve Bank ("SARB") cut the repo rate by 125 basis points to 7%,
marking a continuation of its monetary easing in response to moderated inflation and a relatively stable currency. National Treasury
is working towards an improved macro framework, with ongoing structural reforms key to support higher economic growth. This includes easing
some binding growth constraints via Operation Vulindlela; restoring fiscal sustainability and improving the allocation of government spending;
and recently lowering SA's inflation target to 3%. Though progress is mostly incremental, the macroeconomic policy framework is improving,
and this is welcomed by African Bank. We support all initiatives that assist in bolstering the economy.
KEY INDICATORS
• Net income from operations before impairments up slightly to R7 601 million (FY24: R7 513 million),
• Credit impairments reduced by 6% to R2 440 million (FY24: R2 609 million),
• Credit loss ratio improves to 5.3% (FY24: 6.3%),
• Total income before expenses up 5% to R5 161 million (FY24: R4 904 million)
• Total assets up by 17% to R57 589 million (FY24: R49 335 million),
• Net advances up 15% to R37 084 million (FY24: R32 297 million),
• Cost to income ratio 64.1% (FY24: 58.5%), and
• Active customers grow to 6.3 million from 5.4 million.
Overview of the Group's operating performance
The Group's total net income from operations before impairments and costs remained in line with 2024, with contributions from:
• Interest income on advances of R7.3 billion grew by 4%, positively impacted by the growth in the Business & Commercial advances book,
• Non-interest income grew by 39% to R2.1 billion (FY24: R1.5 billion) as usage of the transactional MyWORLD and credit card accounts
by customers increased, further bolstered by fees and commissions earned on value-add
services and strategic partnership arrangements,
• Net insurance income of R582 million (FY24: R821 million) was impacted by the knock-on effect of lower advances in Personal Banking
offset by the improvement on insurance claims mainly due to lower retrenchment claims, better market conditions and enhanced credit
and insurance risk management,
• The Groups credit impairment charges continued to improve by 6% to R2.4 billion (FY24: R2.6 billion) resulting in an improvement in
the credit loss ratio to 5.3% (FY24: 6.3%), following the diversification benefits from Business & Commercial secured lending, and
improved credit risk management combined with book sales in Personal Banking, and
• Operating expenses increased to R4.9 billion (FY24: R4.4 billion), resulting in an increase in the cost-to-income ratio to 64% (FY24: 59%)
as the group continues to expand the business.
Continued to strengthen the balance sheet to support growth
During FY 25 the bank continued to diversify its balance sheet and strengthen the
capital and liquidity position:
• Net advances of R37.1 billion (FY24: R32.3 billion), grew by 15%, with the main contributor being Business & Commercial growing by 49%,
• The group funding grew by 23% to R43.5 billion (FY24: R35.5 billion) with customer deposits representing growth of 14% to R37 billion
(FY24: R33 billion) including successful issuances in the debt capital markets of R2.7 billion at improved pricing,
• Strong liquidity with cash reserves, excluding statutory asset requirements, totaling R7.4 billion (FY24: R6.0 billion), supporting
planned balance sheet growth, and
• A capital adequacy position in excess of our regulatory and internal minimums, with a ratio of 28.4% (FY24: 31.4%) supporting continued growth.
Strategic delivery on expansion initiatives
We continued to advance our strategic transformation into a full-service financial institution, by expanding both Personal and Business & Commercial
Banking capabilities during the period.
In Personal Banking, we broadened our product suite with enhanced secured lending solutions, including a pilot home loan offering for staff. New
deposit product solutions drove increased engagement with our flagship MyWORLD transactional accounts, supported by our strategic Alliance partnerships.
Unsecured lending growth was managed prudently following the deliberate reconfiguration of the risk model, by enhancing credit granting models, improved
rehabilitation processes, and strengthening of internal and external collections, in response to the operating environment. We also focused on growing our
franchise and customer base, particularly within the middle-income segment. Transactional income increased by 14%, and MyWORLD account volumes grew by 20%.
The proportion of new-to-bank customers rose from 28% to 35%, supported by improved channel productivity. These gains translated into a Customer Satisfaction
Score ("CSAT") of 95% and a Net Promoter Score ("NPS") of 70%.
Insurance has evolved into a core component of our integrated offering. We extended Credit Life Assurance ("CLA") to short-term lending products and introduced
embedded funeral cover for affinity partnership transactional accounts.
In Business & Commercial, we took deliberate steps to diversify through the acquisition of Sasfin's commercial property finance and capital equipment books,
with the integration of these assets and experienced professionals strengthening our capabilities in the market. We expanded secured lending, transactional
banking, and digital services, positioning ourselves for growth across sectors such as logistics, car rental, and corporate fleets. Together with our entry into
the property sector through rental, instalment sale, and leasing solutions, that will add additional revenue streams and customer reach to the business. We are
also partnering with FinTechs to launch a digital lending platform for SMMEs, aimed at improving speed, accessibility, and competitiveness with a fully digital
onboarding experience under development to further enhance operational efficiency and customer service to this market.
Looking ahead
Despite having a challenging year, we remain committed to our strategic journey of becoming a scalable, sustainable, and digitally led financial institution.
Whilst the after-tax earnings growth has not yet fully materialised, we believe our focus on operational efficiencies, cost discipline and customer-centric
innovation continues to drive our strategic decisions towards long-term value and growth.
We are focused on growing sustainably. Investments made in acquiring critical capabilities in people, systems and processes during the period are to support our
Excelerate strategy to create long-term value. We will continue scaling our secured lending, transactional banking, and non-life insurance portfolios and expand
a commercial offering to SMME's and entrepreneurs. Given the momentum on balance sheet diversification and revenue, we are now focused on extracting efficiencies
across the organisation.
We will continue to unlock value from our expanded capabilities and strengthened franchise, with a strategic pivot to agile ways of working to drive efficiency.
Through agile execution, improved efficiencies, prioritising customer journeys, accelerating data and digital transformation, and enhancing end-to-end credit processes.
Combined with strong governance, compliance, and advanced risk management practices. We have established foundations for scalability that will enable sustainable
growth over the long term. We remain steadfast in our commitment to navigate and adapt to market shifts, deliver on our obligations and seize emerging opportunities,
and building a stronger, more sustainable bank for all our stakeholders.
Bank consolidated results
The Bank's consolidated Annual Financial Statements represent the financial position and financial results of African Bank, and its wholly owned subsidiaries.
Like the Group's financial results above, the Bank's total income from operations has improved, delivering a net after tax loss of R283 million (FY 24: R279 million loss).
See the results publication material below for more details.
Restatements
During the current financial year, management identified a classification error in the Statement of Cash Flows ("SOCF") for the year ended 30 September 2024. The cash
flow relating to the liquidity in a tier loan advanced to the Corporation for Deposit Insurance ("CODI") was previously presented as a financing activity.
The CODI loan represents an asset of African Bank and is directly linked to customer deposits. In line with industry practice and benchmarking within the financial services
sector, such cash flows are more appropriately classified as operating activities. Accordingly, the CODI-related cash flow has been presented as an operating activity
in the SOCF and comparatives have been restated for the year ended 30 September 2024.
The above disclosures have been audited by the Group's external auditors. The African Bank and the Group audit reports were unqualified with no modifications,
and the restatements of the previous year's annual financial statements are detailed above.
Results publication material
The following published documents are accessible on African Bank's website at
www.africanbank.co.za under the "Investors/Financial Reporting" section:
1. African Bank Holdings Limited group investor presentation
2. African Bank Holdings Limited audited group consolidated annual financial
statements for the year ended 30 September 2025.
3. African Bank Limited consolidated audited annual financial statements for the
year ended 30 September 2025; and
4. African Bank Limited and African Bank Holdings Limited Basel Pillar III
Disclosure documents as at 30 September 2025.
Webcast details, presentation material and playback facility Interested parties are invited to register for a webcast during which Mr. Kennedy G
Bungane, ABHL Group CEO, and Mr. Anbann Chetti, Group CFO, will take participants through the ABHL consolidated annual results.
Details of the webcast are:
Date: Monday, 24 November 2025
Time: 10h00 SAST/CAT
Presentation: click here : African Bank Holdings Limited Consolidated Audited Financial Results
for access to the presentation.
A recording of the webcast will be available on the Bank's website at
www.africanbank.co.za under "Investors/Financial Reporting".
24 November 2025
Debt Sponsor
The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited
Date: 24-11-2025 11:59:00
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