Pretoria - Bad loans at small South African banks rose to 17.1% of those lenders' books in the first half of this year, the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) said on Wednesday, just months after the collapse of unsecured lender African Bank.
However, impaired advances at the five largest banks - Standard Bank [JSE:SBK], FirstRand [JSE:FSR], Barclays Africa [JSE:, Nedbank [JSE:NED] and Investec [JSE:] - contracted by 2.1% to R81.8bn, Sarb said in its latest financial stability report.