Barclays Africa records 8% revenue growth in 2016 |24 February 2017

The Barclays Africa Group has said that its revenue increased by 8% in 2016 compared to the previous year, representing a total increase of 72.4 billion South African Rands.

Group Chief Executive (CEO) Maria Ramos made the announcement through an audio conference from her office in Johannesburg yesterday afternoon. The conference was followed in all of the twelve African countries where Barclays is present. Locally, it was attended by the Managing Director of Barclays Seychelles Johan Van Schalkwyk, Communications Manager Rebecca Belle and Head of Marketing and Corporate Relations Sonny Barra.

Added to the 8% revenue growth, headline earnings or the company's income based on operational and capital investment activities have also increased by 5%, to 14.9 billion Rands.

It is for the third year in a row that Barclays Africa has recorded a profit. The consecutive earnings’ growth coincides with the third year of a three year strategy where one of the priorities has been to build up on corporate banking operations. The group also attributes the success to efforts to contain costs and increase efficiencies, in order to invest in delivering better services to customers’ yielded results.

“We set out with a vision to create a proudly pan-African bank and today we can confidently say that we are delivering on this ambition”, has commented Maria Ramos.

For 2017, Barclays expects to see a 4.5% average GDP growth in its African market.

Barclays Africa has said that it will continue to invest in Africa. With twelve different markets on the continent, this puts the group in a good position to benefit from more economic growth.