Standard Bank sees its key markets stabilising and forecast a recovery in earnings to 2008 levels after posting lower 2009 profit due to rising impairments.
Africa’s biggest bank by assets said on Thursday normalised headline earnings per share for the year to end-December dropped 20% to 757 cents from 942,6 cents a year-ago. It had forecast a 20-25% fall.
Standard Bank, which offers personal and business, corporate and investment banking and wealth management services, said its credit impairment charge climbed 7% to 12,097 billion rand ($1,60 billion).
Like its rivals, Standard is battling rising defaults at its retail and corporate units as credit-squeezed consumers struggle to pay back loans under tough economic conditions.
Absa, the first of the big four banks to report its 2009 results, reported lower annual profit last month due to rising impairments, while Nedbank posted lower 2009 profit last Thursday as retail bad debts jumped.
Standard Bank is 20% owned by the Industrial and Commercial bank of China, one of the world’s biggest banks by market capitalisation.
Headline EPS is the key profit measure for South African firms and excludes non-trading, capital and certain extraordinary items.
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