It's really good to see FNB, RMB, Aldermore, and WesBank all coming back with some growth – CEO Alan Pullinger.
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW JIMMY MOYAHA: FirstRand reported results today. They had an increase in profits and a very, very stable set of results. I’m joined on the line by the CEO, Alan Pullinger. Good evening, Alan, thanks so much for taking the time.
And our businesses in the broad African region – we have eight subsidiaries operating there – they were actually the stars of the show. Really good performance coming out of there. So lots to like, and we are very pleased with where we landed. But I do think, certainly for the next year, the outlook is still pretty tough.
So in some respects, I’m going to say to you, credit was actually looking really good in FirstRand. I think it’s a very good print. When you get to Stage 3, Stage 3 is what we call non-performing loans. Those are actually your real bad debts. That’s the stuff that I think at the moment we are not concerned about. Yes, bad debts were up, but again fully in line with expectations. And I think, Jimmy, to your point, you don’t want to see your bad debts, that final sort of end-stage – you don’t want to see that running away.
And if you go to the UK people, people will tell you these interest rates are already in painful territory, and yet they’re going higher. I think where the market probably has taken a step back is around the outlook. We have said that the next 12 months, I think are going to be challenging. I don’t know when the first interest-rate cuts are happening, but again, coming back to the crystal ball and our experts, we are told maybe think about interest-rate cuts in the second half of 2024, which of course takes me past my next year-end.
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