FirstRand to focus on Africa as SA rates rise

After establishing commercial banking operations in Nigeria in January, the group said yesterday that it planned to have a greenfield operation and use the Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) platform. It had not ruled out acquisitions there. RMB, FirstRand’s investment banking arm, benefited mostly from activities in the rest of Africa to grow its core advances book in the six months to December last year. The investment bank more than doubled advances in the rest of Africa to R25 billion.

FirstRand has set aside R10bn to expand into the rest of Africa by starting in-country franchises where it does not have a presence or by growing organically and making small-to-medium-sized acquisitions. As the group ventures into other African markets, it admitted that the domestic market was likely to become more challenging, even though the set of results presented yesterday showed resilience.