Barclays 2013 Annual Report Download - page 30

Company
Contribution to total income
£2,617mAdjusted
total income
£2,617m
Africa RBB 2013 2012 2011
Income (£m) 2,617 2,928 3,364
Profit before tax (£m) 404 322 730
Adjusted ROE (%) 0.4 (0.1) 7.4
Loan loss rate (bps) 128 202 136
Loans and advances to customers (£bn) 24.2 29.9 32.5
Customer deposits (£bn) 16.9 19.5 20.3
Distribution points 1,396 1,451 1,493
2013 was affected by increased competition, a changing regulatory
environment and foreign exchange movements, as average ZAR
depreciated 16% against GBP. Income declined 11% to £2,617m driven
by foreign currency movements, partially offset by the non-recurrence
of fair value adjustments in the commercial property finance portfolio
in the prior year. On a constant currency basis, income improved 5%,
despite continued pressure on transaction volumes in a competitive
environment.
The business incurred £26m of costs to achieve Transform which
supported the re-shaping of the branch network and ongoing work on
digitalisation of customer channels and products. Operating expenses
decreased 4% to £1,896m. On a constant currency basis, costs
increased 11% driven by a combination of increased investment spend
on infrastructure and inflation increases in South Africa.
Profit before tax increased 25% to £404m. On a constant currency
basis, profit before tax was up 57%, largely as a result of lower
impairment provisions on the South African home loans recovery book.
Loans and advances to customers decreased 19% to £24.2bn as
foreign currency movements offset growth of 2%, particularly in vehicle
and asset finance.
For more information on performance, please see
pages 237 to 268
Future priorities
We have articulated very clear priorities for 2014:
 Continuing the turnaround programme for our RBB franchise
in South Africa, and the build out across the continent;
 Investing in Corporate Banking across the continent;
 Capturing the growth opportunity in our Wealth, Investment
Management and Insurance franchise;
 Continuing to invest in and develop the talent we have across
the business; and
 These priorities are underpinned by an investment programme
of over ZAR 3bn that will be invested into several large projects
such as transforming our branches, integrating and standardising
IT, investing in our digital capabilities and creating efficient
processing hubs in the right locations.
Africa
continued
For our Corporate and Investment Banking clients we continue to bring
African clients to the global financial markets and give our global
clients access to Africa. For example, we are leveraging our leading
foreign exchange platform BARX Africa to trade 40 currencies across
our key African markets. We have completed a pilot for Barclays.Net
– a streamlined and full-featured cash management platform for our
corporate and commercial clients with full roll-out in South Africa
in 2014.
In 2013, we were named Best Debt House in Africa for the fourth
consecutive year by EuroMoney, Best Bond House and Best FX House
at the Spire Awards and we were voted best Overall Bank by Risk
South Africa.
We have a strong plan in place to continue capturing the opportunities
before us by improving customer and client experience, driving process
simplification as well as innovative products and systems.
Colleague
We have made notable progress in building a talent pipeline that
supports our ambitions and our expanded African footprint provides a
unique opportunity for talented people to advance their careers. We
want to be known for our leadership bench strength and we have
embarked on a number of transformational leadership and values
based programmes which are designed to support our leaders in
delivering on a demanding performance agenda.
Citizenship
Our ambition is to help facilitate greater, more inclusive prosperity in
Africa. In 2013, we consolidated our citizenship structures thus
strengthening our ability to deliver our African plan. Over the year our
activities ranged from funding renewable energy projects to increasing
access to financial services for individuals and small businesses. We
continued to invest our community investment spend in targeted skills
development programmes with proven job creation capabilities. Our
colleagues continued to participate in a range of volunteering events
such as the Nelson Mandela Day in South Africa and Barclays global
Make a Difference Day campaign.
Conduct
Our values underpin the way we behave and form the backbone of our
reputation as a trusted financial services provider. Our ongoing
programme to bring our revised values alive culminated with the
launch of the Barclays Way – a global Code of Conduct – to embed
clear and consistent expectations of behaviours across the Group.
In addition to our underlying values, we believe that laws, regulations
and codes are an enabler to our business – ensuring that we make
informed decisions in how we manage our business and sustain
ourselves into the future.
As with many other jurisdictions, we are managing regulatory change
as well as increasing expectations from stakeholders, and our response
supports our commitment to treat our customers fairly and operate
with integrity.
Basis of Company reporting
Barclays Group reports Africa RBB separately and the following
information relates specifically to the Africa RBB reporting segment.
Results from other global businesses operating in Africa are integrated
within each respective business’ results.
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28 Barclays PLC Annual Report 2013