{"id":449797,"date":"2020-11-19T10:09:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T08:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=449797"},"modified":"2020-11-19T10:09:43","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T08:09:43","slug":"absa-sees-muted-recovery-for-south-africa-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/449797\/absa-sees-muted-recovery-for-south-africa-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Absa sees muted recovery for South Africa in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"gmail_default\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Absa Group expects South Africa\u2019s real GDP to fall 8.7% in 2020, with muted growth of 2.6% forecast for next year amid significant uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe expect another 25 basis point cut in South Africa\u2019s prime rate today (Thursday 19 November), although this remains finely balanced. Thereafter, it is likely to remain flat until a 25 basis point increase in the fourth quarter of 2021,\u201d it said on Thursday (19 November) in a voluntary trading update for the nine months ended September 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The group said it experienced the following financial trends for the first nine months of 2020, on a normalised basis:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Revenue growth was similar to the 3% increase in the first half;<\/li>\n<li>Growth in gross loans slowed slightly to 5% YoY;<\/li>\n<li>In South Africa, Retail and Business Banking (RBB) and Corporate and Investment Banks (CIB) gross loans grew 3% and 5% respectively YoY.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Absa pointed out that headcount fell by 1,200 in the year-to-date.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The lender said it expects headline earnings per share (HEPS) and earnings per share (EPS) to decline by more than 40% to R17.50 and R17.17 per share respectively for the year ending December 2020.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Retail and business banking South Africa\u2019s third quarter credit loss ratio increased substantially YoY, although it improved noticeably from the first half, particularly in mortgages, it said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Of the R154 billion in payment relief granted to RBB South Africa customers, 24% by value extended payment relief when it expired. Of the R116 billion in RBB South Africa relief book that expired, 91% are paying and 9% have missed one or more payments.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Missed payments on the expired payment relief book are lowest in Relationship Banking and home loans at 4% and 8% respectively, and higher in unsecured. As part of the government loan guarantee scheme R1.8 billion in business loans have been approved, from R0.5 billion at 30 June 2020, the lender said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/427986\/absa-says-south-africans-are-struggling-to-repay-debt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Absa says South Africans are struggling to repay debt<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Absa Group expects South Africa\u2019s real GDP to fall 8.7% in 2020, with muted growth of 2.6% forecast for next year amid significant uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":257885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,26],"class_list":["post-449797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449797"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449907,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449797\/revisions\/449907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}