Andile Kenneth Fihla
CEO & Executive Director
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Absa’s pre-close call for the first half of 2026. I will make a few introductory comments on where we are as a group, the momentum we see in our customer franchise and the operating environment. And thereafter, Deon will share our financial guidance, after which we’ll field your questions.
Firstly, 2026 is a critical transition year for Absa. Our new operating model is in place, and we’ll report 3 Pan-African business units for the first time as well as on South Africa and Africa region basis. We have made significant progress on key appointments with leadership of all the business units in place. These new leaders will need time to refine their strategies, build out their teams and execute against their plans. I have great confidence in the caliber of these senior appointments, which set us up well to accelerate momentum over the medium to long term.
Secondly, our business fundamentals are strong, with encouraging customer trends and a healthy pipeline across the franchise. In the first 5 months, our Corporate and Investment Banking client revenue grew by high single digit year-on-year with strong growth in investment banking and global markets in particular. Transactional banking client growth will take longer to build, but we’ve started to see some large wins, which is encouraging and will provide momentum