African and international operations

Being the preferred bank for all South Africans is Nedbank Group’s primary objective. We are also committed to making sure as many people as possible, in Africa and around the world, experience the benefits of a bank that does things differently in order to Make Things Happen.

During 2008 Nedbank Africa continued to grow steadily from strength to strength despite a
globally challenging economic environment on the back of the fallout from the subprime debacle
and subsequent credit crisis. The group’s growth in Africa remains underpinned by Nedbank Africa’s
continued commitment to a proven three-tier strategy comprising:

1 Improvement and growth in existing businesses;
2 Low-cost entry into select countries; and
3 Target acquisition and alliances in key markets.

Using this strategy, Nedbank Group continued to build and improve on its commitment to sustainability, good governance and transparency in all its African operations during the year under review. Depending on incountry regulatory requirements, Nedbank Group policies, together with board and committee structures, where practical, were adopted by the group’s subsidiaries to ensure consistency of implementation and standards.

2008 HIGHLIGHTS AND HAPPENINGS – AFRICA

 

Financial/Shareholders

Despite the challenging economic environment, Nedbank Africa increased its profitability and financial targets:

• Headline earnings – up 19% on 2007.
• Return on risk-adjusted capital (RORAC) – up 20% on 2007.

Clients

• NedbankAfrica continues to strive to enhance its product offering. Significant progress was made in implementing card strategies among subsidiaries.
• Travelex (cash passport) was launched in Malawi during 2008.
• Two branches were opened (one in Lesotho and one in Swaziland) and 12 ATMs across Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland were added to our ATM network.
• An alliance agreement was successfully concluded with Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, parent of the Ecobank Group, to provide clients access to a combined Pan-African banking group in 30 countries with over 1 000 branches and banking outlets across the African continent.

Regulators

• Relationships with the SARB and incountry regulators remain strong.
• Significant progress was made in training employees in terms of applicable regulation.

Corporate governance

• Continued building on Basel implementation successes achieved during 2007. All countries received unconditional approval to implement the Basel II Standardised Approach for measuring operational risk.
• Significant progress with the implementation of regulatory reporting to SARB on Basel II Standardised Approach, which incorporates calculating capital for credit risk, operational risk and market risk.
• Satisfactory progress in implementing the anti-money- laundering project.
• Endorsement by incountry boards of the King II Report on Corporate Governance.

Employees

• Continuation of the rollout of the training programme in line with commitment to improving staff skills.
• General improvement in culture and values and staff morale across all subsidiaries.
• Upskilling of staff on processes and procedures (started in 2008 and will continue in 2009).

Challenges

• Complete alignment of IT in all operations remains a challenge and we continue to focus resources on the skills development of our people in this area.
• Remuneration challenges continue in Zimbabwe, and retaining staff in the current hyper-inflationary environment is difficult.

 

	Operational statistics (December 2008)
		Namibia	Swaziland	Lesotho	Zimbabwe	Malawi	Total
	Branches	20	8	7	5	2	42
	Agencies	0	1	2	0	0	3
	ATMs	36	14	12	6	2	70

 

GOALS FOR 2009

• Incountry support and upskilling.
• Review and implementation of Group environmental priorities.

 

GRI – Financial Services Sector Supplement: FS6