By Adelaide Changole.
Standard Bank Group said first-half profit rose to a record as Africa’s biggest bank by assets navigated the inflationary and monetary-policy effects of the war in the Middle East, which weighed on its clients’ confidence.
Headline earnings grew 10% to R26.1 billion in the six months through June, buoyed by fee growth and higher trading revenue that offset a slowdown in interest income, the Johannesburg-based lender said in a statement on Thursday.
It declared an interim dividend of R9.02 per share, the highest on record.
US-Iran tensions over the period disrupted seaborne traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, raising energy and fertiliser costs and stoking price growth.
The increase in import costs saw inflation in South Africa, Standard Bank’s biggest market, accelerate at the fastest pace in two years in June to 5%, with the protracted conflict making it less likely that it will return to the central bank’s 3% target as quickly as policymakers had suggested before the escalation.