Nedbank’s Avo SuperShop registered over 1,800 users and features more than 3,000 products from 19 merchants, since its launch in Namibia in the second half of 2023.
According to Nedbank Group unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2024, this is expected to continue to improve as more users register and more merchants are added to the platform.
The Avo SuperShop serves as a digital marketplace where customers can access essential goods, fashion items, and appliances while prioritising the security of transactions and offering rewards through AvoPoints for Nedbank Namibia clients.
The merchants include Nictus, MegaTech, Nanodog, Pandora, Zera Leather, Inside Africa, Apple, Leer Meester, Maillot Jaune, Chai Namibia, Lovelle’s Baby Boutique, Makalani Homeware, Double Barrel Arms, JCSports, Canocopy, DF Creations and Cira Tech.
The merchants also include Inside Africa, Aesthetic Centre Olympia, Impact Studio among others. The group’s digitally active clients make up 67% (H1 2023: 60%) of the total client base during the period under review.
“Our digital growth strategy will remain focused on limited enhancements and the implementation of new solutions outside of our convergence journey, which are necessary to remain competitive and to grow and achieve scale,” said the report.
Nedbank Africa Regions Group Managing Executive Terence Sibiya said headline earnings in the region decreased by 36% to R725 million and a return on equity of 18.2% was generated during the half year.
“This performance was driven by decreases in headline earnings in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) operations and the performance of our ETI associate investment during the period. Southern African Development Community operations decreased by 41% to R271 million and its ROE decreased to 7.3%,” he said.
He noted that the declines were largely because of changes in the functional currency for Zimbabwe to the US dollar, causing the non-repeat of the unrealised forex gains from the prior year.
Excluding the impact of the prior year forex gains impacting NIR, headline earnings in SA would have increased by 65%.
“Nedbank’s Africa Regions business remains in really good shape and is poised to grow further. If H1 2023 once-offs and foreign currency base effect are excluded, earnings for the NAR business would have been up by 10%,” he said.
Some highlights in the SADC operations include overall number of clients’ growth by 9%, of which 40% are main-banked clients.
“This month we are celebrating the first anniversary of the launch of the Avo SuperShop in Namibia. Pleasingly we are continuing to grow our registered users, with now over 3,000 products from nineteen merchants on offer,” he said.
Meanwhile, SADC’s net interest income increased by 5% to R1 245 million and was mainly driven by higher interest rates with net interest margin widening slightly to 7.58% (H1 2023: 7.55%) and growth in loans and advances across the markets except for Namibia.
“This was offset by a 3% decrease in average loans and advances to R21 billion due to lower demand in Namibia,” the report noted.
