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Johannesburg - Capitec Bank Holdings [JSE:CPI], which makes high-interest loans to low-income consumers, said diluted headline earnings per share jumped 47% in the year to end-February, helped by a surge in fees and higher income from loans as it continued to add market share in unsecured lending.
The bank's headline rose from R1.078bn to R1.584bn for the year ended 28 February 2013.
Directors declared a final dividend of 405 cents per ordinary share on 25 March 2013‚ bringing the total dividends for the year to 574 cents per share.
“In the last twelve months our earnings increased by 47% to R1.584m. We raised R2.2bn in new share capital through a rights issue but still managed a return of 27% on equity‚” the company said in a statement.
The bank said its share of the lucrative unsecured lending market increased 3 percentage points to 17%.
Unsecured loans are not backed by collateral, making them higher risk but very profitable for banks.
The bank's total client base increased to 4.7 million active clients, up by 26% year-on-year.
Capitec continues to grow rapidly in the younger and higher income groups in South Africa.
CEO Riaan Stassen said that the bank was making good inroads into the primary banking market and acquiring significant numbers of new clients who were depositing their income with the bank.
Significant growth in revenue came from transaction income‚ up 61% to R1.3bn.
“Transaction income is a reflection of the activity levels‚ mostly of our primary bank clients and is a reflection of the growing confidence clients have in our bank to meet their core banking needs‚” Stassen said. “We are pleased at the rate at which we are changing our revenue profile with transaction income up from 34% to 45% of our operating expenses‚” he said.
The bank said it had a total of 560 branches nationwide and planned to open 75 new branches in the coming financial year.
Capitec's workforce had also grown by 1 114 to 8 308.
Capitec shares rose 1.2% to R204.22, outperforming a 0.5%
gain in Johannesburg's All Share [JSE:J203] index.
