Absa Uganda Posts a 222bn Profit

Absa Bank Uganda has released its financial results, showing a huge UGX 222 billion net profit, which was up 25.1 percent compared to the 2024 performance.   

David Wandera, Absa Uganda Managing Director, noted that the growth was a result of understanding the customers deeply, investing in digital capability, and being precise in how capital is deployed 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

The IMF has revised its 2026 global growth forecast. From over 2300 cities and 138 countries, we bring you the Good Morning Africa podcast. Good morning, Africa. Welcome aboard your health on Everything Business in Africa. I am with the Dong. For more follow-ups on Twitter, LK Financial News, and you can find me at Mytha Dong. It's results season and ABSABank Uganda has just released its financial results, showing a huge 222 billion Uganda shillings net profit, which was up 25.1% compared to 2024 performance. David Wandera, ABSA Uganda Managing Director, notes that the growth is a result of understanding its customers deeply, investing in digital capability, and also being precise in how capital is deployed.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Our 2025 results reflect deliberate discipline choices to strengthen the bank and build capacity, future capacity. Revenue grew 16.6%, reaching 637 billion. Customer deposits increased by 46.4% to 4.6 trillion. Total assets grew by 29.4%. Profit after tax increased by 25.1% to 222 billion. So congratulations and well done to all of you. What drove our performance? Our performance is anchored in refreshed strategy built on four pillars. Placing the customer at the center of everything that we do, strengthening our Pan-African reach, driving disciplined execution, and unlocking growth through innovation. First, customer trust. We continue to invest in digital, new product development, and selective inorganic growth. What do we mean by selective inorganic growth? We'll come to that later. But first, we expanded our offerings, and I'll speak to that in detail more across retail and corporate banking. We reintroduced our custody services last year, and as announced previously, one of the major developments happening, we also signed a business sale agreement to acquire the retail and wealth management business of Standard Chartered Bank Uganda, subject to regulatory approval. We'll share further details once all the regulatory and governance processes are concluded. Digital, what does that mean for us? In Uganda, we have seen that customer interaction with financial services has continued to shift decisively towards digital channels. According to Bank of Uganda, mobile banking transaction values grew by 39.4% year on year last year to 15.5 trillion Uganda shillings. With electronic fund transfers increasing and check usage declining. Check transactions declining. We are seeing a migration away from paper based payments and transactions towards digital financial services. What does this really mean? What does this say? Digital is no longer an alternative, it's becoming the default. It's necessary for how we do business. Against this backdrop, our payment volumes grew by 18.5%, outperforming the market average of 11%, showing our leadership in payments and cards. During the year, we introduced a couple of products and solutions: ABSA Digilon, APSA Pay, APSA Pay by Link, APSA Infinite Signature and Digital Cards that come with a number of benefits. If you don't have one, I suggest you give one soon. It's faster, more intuitive, and more accessible for everyone. Today, customers can open an account online in under 10 minutes. What have we done in the economy as you think about UPSA? What matters most really is how all this growth and strength translates into real economic impact. Some are fasts, some are significant improvements on what we did before. We supported the growth of our foreign exchange reserves by participating with Banco Uganda or in Bank of Uganda's cost currency remote problem. So when you see currency stability, when you see significant inflows, it's things like those that build the confidence and the ability for us to maintain our currency in a stable situation.

unknown 6:30

Opposition entities.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

During the year, we also executed an extended$50 million facility to UNDCL to support electricity distribution, an essential enabler for industrial growth and job creation. We also participated in a hundred million dollar syndicated facility to MTM Uganda, expanding infrastructure and accelerating financial inclusion, particularly to underserved communities. We also continue to support SMEs through platforms such as the ABSA Business Club, enabling access not just to finance but also to markets, to knowledge, and to beneficial partnerships. Through our strategic partnership with Tata, we are tackling both businesses and social challenges in sectors such as education by improving access to safe, affordable school transport, supporting school owners to purchase buses.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Cocoa futures rose above 3,500 per tonne, reaching the highest since mid-February, supported by a weaker US dollar and spillover effects from lingering geopolitical tensions. The closure of the strike of Homer's weighs on the cocoa market by disrupting fertilizer supply chains and increasing global shipping rates, insurance premiums, and fuel costs, thereby raising production and import expenses. However, market fundamentals remain pressured by ample West African supply expectations and subdue demand. Latest data shows ICE the ICE cocoa inventories rose by 19.5 months high of 2.6 million bags by twin by April 13th. At the same time, cocoa arrivals at ports in top two in the top two growers Code d'Ivoire rose by 0.10% to 1.46 metric uh million metric tons of as of April 12th since the start of the season of October 1st. Attention now turns to the release of fast-quota grinding data across Europe, Asia, and North America due on Apo 16th, expected to signal weak global demand. And a quick look at the other stories, the IMF has revised its 2026 global growth forecast downward to 3.1%, a 0.2 percentage point cut from previous expectations, while maintaining the 2027 outlook at 3.2%, reflecting the economic fallout from the ongoing Middle East conflict. Although the baseline scenario assumes a contained conflict, the IMF warns that prolonged hostilities could further weaken the global economy and destabilize financial markets. It also notes that energy supply shocks from Iran conflict is comparable in severity to the 1974 crisis, though the global economy is now more resilient. By region, the US economy is expected to grow by 2.3% in 2026 and 2.1% in 2027. China's growth is forecast to slow to 4.4% and 4% respectively. The euro area is projected to expand by 1.1 in 2026 and 1.2 in 2027, while UK and Japan face similarly modest growth of 0.8 and 0.7 in 2026 compared to 1.3 and 0.6 in 2027. Global inflation is expected to rise modestly in 2026 before declining again in 2027. South Africa dropped five places to twelfth in a ranking of emerging market investment destinations, reflecting weakening confidence among foreign investors. Contraction, the country's mining sector, propelled the drop, according to the latest Keeney index, after industry experienced its first production decline in nine months as of November 2025. Domestic political uncertainty, infrastructure issues, increasing operational costs, and global trade tensions have all converged to impact demand for South African mineral exports. The US topped the overall index for the 14th year in a row, while China, UAE, Saudi Arabia led the emerging market ranking for the third consecutive year.