CABS surplus doubles as lending rebounds

A RISE in non-interest income as loans went up at CABS, one of the country's biggest building societies, inspired a 130% increase in surplus in inflation adjusted terms for the year to December 2021, latest results showed yesterday.

CABS' surplus grew to $5,88 billion during the year under review, from $2,56 billion in 2020.

"This growth was mainly driven by growth in net interest income attributable to the growth in the loan book," managing director Mehluli Moyo said in a statement accompanying the results.

"In addition, non-funded income grew due to increases in the nominal values of transactions, foreign currency translation gains, as well as property fair value gains," Mpofu added.

He said the society's "solid" performance was on the back of an increase in lending and growth in digital transactions. The digitalisation strategy, Mpofu added, also resulted in an increase in the volume of digital transactions through convenience.

Net interest income grew from $2,2 billion in 2020 to $5,7 billion after loans and advances grew to $5,9 billion during the period under review, from $2,7 billion during the comparable period in 2020.

Term loans and overdrafts, at $5,5 billion in 2021 compared to $2,5 billion in 2020, accounted for the bulk of loans and advances while mortgage loans doubled to $428,8 million.

Fee and commissions income for the period totalled $7,5 billion, up from $4,7 billion.

Commission fees grew to $3,2 billion in 2021 from $1,9 billion last year while service fees amounted to $2 billion in 2021, up from 1,3 billion during the comparable period last year. Administration fees grew to $2,2 billion, the statement said, noting that this figure was  $1,5 billion during the comparable period in 2020.

Other income - comprising housing projects trading profit, rental income from investment property, fair value gain on equity, foreign exchange gain, dividend and other income from equity investments- grew to $3,1 billion in 2021, up from $2,2 billion prior year.

Going forward, Mpofu said, the society's outlook was positive.

"The digitalisation strategy, coupled with the customer centric plans will grow the business and counter the COVID-19 pandemic that remains a potential deterrent to our growth strategy," added Mpofu.

Chairman Washington Matsaira said the society had continued to promote the use of its digital channels which include point of sale machines, mobile and internet banking services to ensure good service delivery while maintaining customer and staff safety.