Wesbank to leave Australia

MotorOne Finance, the vehicle finance operation, will cease new business origination, and WesBank will explore options with respect to exiting the portfolio, it said.

Offers will be sought for Worldmark, the car care business.

"WesBank has evaluated MotorOne Finance and concluded the business model will not deliver WesBank's required returns in the medium to long term. As a result of the decision to exit the MotorOne Finance business, Worldmark, which was complementary to the finance company, becomes a non-core operation," said Wesbank CEO Brian Riley.

In total, these transactions are not expected to have a material impact on the profitability of WesBank, he said.

In the six months ended December, Wesbank's overall profitability was impacted by significant increases in credit defaults in its local lending business. In addition, although losses continued to be incurred in the international operations, these were at lower levels than the prior period.

However, this resulted in normalised earnings declining 14% to R462m, which the group said was disappointing.

- I-Net Bridge