Mozambique: H1 profits of five largest banks up 9.5%

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Mozambique: H1 profits of five largest banks up 9.5%

3:42 CAT | 14 Aug 2024

File photo: Lusa

The profits of the five largest Mozambican banks grew 9.5% in the first half of the year, to more than 12,433 million meticais (almost €179 million), with Standard Bank leading the way, according to data compiled by Lusa on Tuesday.

According to the interim financial reports for the first half of the year of Mozambique’s five largest banks, this performance contrasts with the net results of 11,360 million meticais (€162.8 million) in the first half of 2023.

Profits in the first six months of 2024 were led by Standard Bank, one of the three banks considered “systemic” by the central bank, which increased 3% compared to the same period in 2023, to 3,936 million meticais (€57 million).

Standard Bank Moçambique is a private bank established in 1967, headquartered in Maputo, but whose activity in the country dates back to 1894. Its parent company and majority shareholder is Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited, an investment bank incorporated in the United Kingdom that holds a 98.15% stake in the share capital. Stanbic Africa is a wholly-owned entity of the Standard Bank Group, an investment bank incorporated in South Africa.

The profits of Banco Comercial e de Investimentos (BCI), majority owned by Caixa Geral de Depósitos, followed suit, increasing by 2.8% compared to 2023, to 3,549 million meticais (€51.4 million).

BCI closed 2023 with a share capital of 10 billion meticais (€146 million), in a shareholder structure led (51%) by Caixa Participações, part of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) group, with the Portuguese bank BPI (35.67%) and also directly by CGD (10.51%), among others.

The profits of Millennium BIM, the second largest in the country, led by the Portuguese BCP and one of the three systemic banks in Mozambique, fell by more than 4% in the first half of the year, to 3,225 million meticais (€46.6 million).

As of 30 June 2024, the Millennium BIM bank had share capital of 4.5 billion meticais (65.7 million euros), the majority of which was held by BCP África (Millennium BCP group), with 66.69%, followed by the State of Mozambique (17.12%), the Mozambican National Institute of Social Security (4.95%) and the Mozambican Insurance Company (4.15%), among others.

The following in the list of five are the two banks considered “almost systemic”, namely the South African Absa Bank Moçambique, whose profits more than doubled in the first half of the year, to 1.712 million meticais (€24.5 million), a performance above that recorded for the whole of last year.

The share capital of Absa Bank Moçambique is 98.68% held by the South African group Absa, with the remaining 1.32% controlled by minority shareholders, such as employees and others.

Moza Banco, another of the country’s almost systemic banks, intervened in 2016, recorded profits of more than 11.2 million meticais (€161,000) until June, recovering from losses of 55.6 million meticais (€795,000) in the same period of 2023.

In 2016, Moza Banco was taken over by the management company of the pension fund for employees of the Bank of Mozambique [Kuhanha], at a time when it had the Portuguese Novo Banco, successor to Banco Espírito Santo, as one of its main shareholders.

According to data from the central bank, there are 15 commercial banks and 12 micro-banks operating in Mozambique, in addition to various credit cooperatives and savings and credit organisations.

Source: Lusa