Absa's bad home loans in SA triple, but it expects strong recovery in coming months

SA's fourth most valuable banking group Absa says while a measure of bad debts in its home loan portfolio has more than tripled, it's working with its customers and doesn't necessarily expect a spike in the number of repossessed homes it's looking to offload.

Clear pressure on SA's struggling consumers was evident in the bank's half-year results to end June, when headline earnings climbed 2% to R10.7 billion, but credit impairment charges jumped 60% to R8.3 billion.

A strong showing by its Corporate and Investment Banking business, as well as its regional operations, offset pressure on its SA retail business, with the bank reporting credit card impairments jumped 70% to almost R2.4 billion. Home loan impairments rocketed 258% to R975 million and the credit-loss ratio in its this part of the business jumped to 65 basis points from 19. At a group level, it rose to 127 points from 91.