The profits of Standard Bank Mozambique, one of the country’s three largest banks, increased by 7.8 per cent in 2023, to a “record” 7.3 billion meticals, a financial performance driven by the “effectiveness” of the strategy and the “resilience of the business”.
“Our total revenues grew by 5 per cent, from 18.2 billion meticals in 2022, to 19.1 billion meticals last year,” revealed Standard Bank’s managing director, Bernardo Aparício, quoted in a report.
He said that the bank’s “proportion of interest-bearing assets” “fell sharply” last year, from 84 per cent to 68 per cent, “following the adjustment of the mandatory reserves coefficient”, which was increased in 2023 by decision of the central bank.
“Our balance sheet remains strong and very liquid. Given the restrictive monetary policy last year, the sector as a whole had weak growth in terms of assets. In this context, we remained focussed,” he described.
Aparício pointed out that Standard Bank ended the year with 2,364 employees, noting that the bank’s net loan portfolio fell by 15.8 per cent due to the “repayment” of loans from some of its “large corporate clients”.
“During the year, we made efforts to reform loans in difficulty and to recover those that could not be restructured. These efforts produced remarkable results, with non-performing loans falling from 2.6 billion meticals in 2022 to 2.5 billion meticals,” he explained.
“The return on equity grew 20.6 per cent in 2022 to 21.1 per cent last year, as a result of greater efficiency, and the financial margin rose from 8.8 per cent to 9.8 per cent, but with the transformation rate falling from 36.5 per cent to 32.5 per cent. The bank’s total volume of loans and advances to customers fell in 2023 to 34.3 billion meticals,” he emphasised.
The bank ended 2023 with total assets of 158.9 billion meticals, while equity rose to 35.8 billion meticals and liabilities grew to 123.1 billion meticals.
Standard Bank Moçambique is a private bank founded in 1967 and headquartered in Maputo. Its parent company and majority shareholder is Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited, an investment bank incorporated in the United Kingdom which holds a stake equivalent to 98.15 per cent of the share capital and wholly owned by the Standard Bank Group. The remaining 1.85 per cent of the Mozambique branch’s capital is held by minority shareholders.
