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Pretoria – SA's banking sector remained adequately capitalised in the second half of last year‚ the latest Financial Stability Review from the SA Reserve Bank released on Thurday showed.
The review‚ which focuses mainly on financial sector developments in the six-month period ended December last year‚ showed that the capital-adequacy ratio as at 31 December was almost 16%‚ well above the minimum regulatory requirement of 9.5%.
Gross loans and advances‚ which makes up the largest asset on local banks' balance sheets‚ rose by 5.3% for the six months to December.
Most categories of gross loans and advances increased during the period under review‚ with the main growth being from other loans (10.3%)‚ followed by term loans (10.1%) and lease and instalment debtors (6.5%).
The review noted that the quality of the loan books appeared to have improved somewhat as the banking sector's impaired advances decreased to 4.1% of the total loan book over the six months to December‚ mainly as a result of write-offs.
Total banking-sector assets increased by 6.9% year on year to R3.652 trillion in December‚ while the contribution of the financial‚ real-estate‚ and insurance and business services industries to nominal gross domestic product increased to almost 10% in the quarter ended December last year.
