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'Consumers won't recover soon'

Aug 13 2008 16:42

Johannesburg - Standard Bank, Africa's biggest bank by assets, does not expect South Africa's struggling consumer lending market to recover until 2010 at the earliest, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

"It's unlikely that we will see the consumer lending market take off until 2010 at the earliest," CEO Jacko Maree told Reuters in an interview after the company's first-half results.

He added that he expected the company's personal and business banking unit, which has been hit as consumers struggle to pay back debts due to higher interest rates, to start looking up at the end of next year.

Standard Bank, which is sitting on a large cash pile after the sale of a 20 percent stake to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China this year, plans to "scale up" its investment banking business in South America, Maree said.

And Maree added that if a political solution is found in Zimbabwe, Standard Bank would inject more capital into its business there.

- Reuters

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