Good afternoon. Thank you for joining the Standard Bank Group pre-close call this afternoon. My name is Sarah Rivett-Carnac. I'll be managing the call this afternoon. As you all be aware, we issued a voluntary trading update on SENS this morning. The purpose of this call is to cover the highlights of that announcement. Then we will open for Q&A. On the call today, we have Arno Daehnke, the Standard Bank Group finance director, Brooks Mparutsa, Barbara Bell, and Thembelihle Ngema, the client segment CFOs. I will now hand over to Arno. Thank you. Arno, over to you.
Thank you, Sarah, and good afternoon, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. Starting with the macro environment and particularly how things have evolved since we released our results in August. Since reporting in August 2022, sustained elevated inflation globally has prompted further monetary tightening. Between August 2022 and October 2022, interest rates increased in all our markets operation, except Angola and Zambia. In Angola, interest rates declined by 50 basis points since September 2022, and in Zambia, interest rates were flat. Ghana has experienced some sovereign stress. The Ghanaian cedi has declined by over 50% relative to the South African rand year-to-date, and inflation has spiked. In South Africa, inflation ticks up over the course of the first six months. It is broadly considered to have peaked in July at 7.8%.
Inflation has moderated slightly to 7.6% in October. Standard Bank Research expects inflation to average 6.9% for 2022. The South African Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Committee decided at its November meeting to increase the repo rate by 75 basis points to 7%. This is the third consecutive 75 basis point increase. This takes the cumulative year-to-date increases to 325 basis points. It was interesting to note that the members voting changed from three-two for 75 basis points and 100 basis points in September to three-two for 75 basis points and 50 basis points in November. While the governor highlighted ongoing inflationary risks to the downside, we expect interest rate increases to be limited from here on. At this stage, Standard Bank Research expects a further 25 basis points in January 2023.
From a currency perspective, on average, over the 10-month period, the South African rand has been weaker relative to the group's basket of currencies. This has favorably impacted the group's reported earnings growth year-to-date. Turning to our performance and trends for the 10 months through the end of October this year. Starting with revenue. In the 10 months to 31st of October 2022, relative to the 10 months to 31st October 2021, robust average balance sheet growth, combined with positive endowment tailwinds from higher average interest rates, resulted in strong double-digit net interest income growth period on period. All three client segments recorded growth in average loans advances year-on-year. Non-interest revenue growth remained robust, supported by growth in transactional activity, trading revenue, and insurance earnings. Transactional fee growth benefited from fee increases combined with a larger client base.
Trading revenue growth was still double digits, but slowed relative to the 21% increase in the first half of the year. I remind you that the second half of 2021 was a record performance, setting a high base. Insurance earnings growth was underpinned by higher fees, mainly due to annual fee increases, continued good funeral policy performance, and lower credit life claims compared to the prior period. Moving to costs. Cost growth was higher than expected, driven by higher inflation and higher levels of activity, particularly in Africa regions. Despite upward pressure, cost growth was contained to below the group's weighted average rate of inflation, and the group continued to record strong positive jaws. With regards to credit, group credit impairment charges increased period on period, influenced by the low base in the second half of last year.
The Consumer and High Net Worth portfolio continued to benefit from better collections and the ongoing normalization of previous payment holiday portfolios. This was partially offset by the increased impairment charges from new business strain as well as pockets of customer strain. The Business and Commercial client segment credit impairment charges were broadly flat. Credit charges in South Africa declined as provisions raised on the COVID guaranteed lending in the prior year did not repeat. Charges in Africa regions increased period-on-period, driven by new book growth and lower write-off recoveries in the current year. Corporate and Investment Banking credit charges continued to normalize, with additional provisions raised due to portfolio growth, internal rating downgrades and client specific provisions. The group remains well provided and can weather an uptick in delinquencies. Turning to Liberty.
Pleasingly, Liberty's earnings continued to recover as the pandemic impact waned. Liberty remains well capitalized. The Liberty integration is going well. We remain confident we will deliver the ZAR 600 million revenue synergies as well as the capital synergies previously outlined. We are taking actions to reduce Liberty Solvency Capital Requirement cover ratio to within its new target range. For reference, the new target range was revised down in August this year from 1.5x-2x to 1.3x-1.7x. ICBC Standard Bank Plc. This entity continued to report a positive operational performance for the 10 months of 2022. The improved performance in Liberty, combined with the insurance settlement received by ICBCS in January 2022, boosted group earnings growth to above that recorded at a Standard Bank activities level.
Year to date, the group's return on equity remained above the group's cost of equity and improved relative to the ROE of 15.3% reported in the first half of this year. As noted in our Pillar 3 report released last Friday, the group's common equity tier 1 ratio as at 30th of September 2022 remained robust at 13.2%. Turning to our guidance for 2022. We expect 2022 total income growth and cost growth to be higher than guided in August 2022. This is largely due to faster than expected increases in interest rates and higher inflation rates. We expect continued positive jaws for the year. The group's credit loss ratio is expected to remain in the lower half of the group's through the cycle target range of 70 basis points-100 basis points.
We will provide guidance for 2023 when we report in March next year. Lastly, while there are some clouds on the horizon in terms of slowing growth, the group continues to benefit from strong momentum across all its businesses and geographies. We remain confident that we are on track to deliver against the targets we committed to at our strategy update in August 2021. More specifically, these targets include over the four-year period to 2025, a revenue CAGR of 7%-9% over the four-year period. A cost-to-income ratio approaching 50% by 2025. A return on equity in our target range of 17%-20%. Thank you. Sarah, back to you.
We'll now move to questions. Chris, can I hand over to you to manage the questions? Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one on your touchtone phone or on the keypad on your screen. You will hear a confirmation tone that you have joined the queue. If you decide to withdraw the question, please press star and then two to remove yourself from the list. Our first question is from James Starke of RMB Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, Arno, Sarah, and team. Two questions from me, please. As we look into dividends in year-end, I mean, how are you thinking about the payout ratio? I mean, has it changed since you last updated the market? What prospects do you think there is of elevated capital return? The second question just relates to cost and your cost guidance. I just note you haven't really emphasized the 4%-5% CAGR cost guidance through 2025. Can you give us some sense on how you're thinking about longer term cost evolution at this point? I mean, is that previous guidance still valid from a cost perspective? Thank you.
Thanks, James. Good to hear from you. On dividends, we have a payout range which we've guided to the market of between 45% and 60% payout range. For the second half of this year, the dividends will be at the upper end of that payout range. Towards the upper end of the payout range. On cost guidance. Look, historically, we've managed our costs below inflation, we remain confident we can do that. When we gave that 4%-5% range, I think we certainly did not expect inflation to run at such high levels. For your information, we weighted average inflation for the group, weighted by cost base, is currently 14%. Our cost growth is currently tracking below that, comfortably below that. Clearly, it's much higher than 4%-5%.
We're missing that target for this year. In the longer term, as inflation rates may normalize, you know, we might sort of track back to mid to higher single digit cost growth. Below inflation is an important parameter to think about here.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from Londiwe Buthelezi of Fin24. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Arno. Thank you for the presentation. Just quickly by when exactly in the trading update where you talk about pockets of consumer strain?
Sorry, Londiwe, your line is very, very bad. Can we ask that you just please disconnect and retry? We could not understand a word you were saying. Could you please disconnect and retry? I will, in the meantime, move on to the next question from Ross Krige of Investec. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks, everyone. A couple questions from me. Just on the OpEx line, just to get an understanding split between South Africa and Africa regions, if you could maybe just elaborate on that? Again, I guess to the earlier question on your longer term forecasts, do you think, I mean, do you think this is a prolonged period of elevated inflation? It sounds like you're still confident that you can reduce that certainly below what you expect top line to grow at on a view to 2025. Just maybe any comment on that. On asset quality, in the Consumer and High Net Worth segment, you talk about pockets of consumer strain. Hopefully you could just elaborate a bit on that.
What product segments you're seeing that, and maybe just talk about the differences between the secured and unsecured portfolio. Sorry, finally, just on Liberty, if you could just elaborate on how much the improved claims experience has impacted that performance. Maybe just give a bit of data on underlying performance on new business and volumes and margins. Thanks very much.
Yeah. Thanks, Ross. I'll take 3 of the questions and hand over to Lihle for the consumer credit question. Lihle, if you can take that just now. On OpEx, okay. Cost growth in South Africa is much lower than in Africa regions. Obviously on the back of inflation being much lower, not far off our previous targets we had of mid-single digit cost growth in South Africa. The higher cost growth for the group is really coming from Africa regions where we are facing higher inflationary pressures. In both instances, our cost growth is below inflation, both in South Africa as well in Africa regions. That's the trend. In the longer term, you know, we've just finished our planning cycle for next year obviously giving guidance on that now.
We are seeing a reversal of inflation rates, and our cost growth next year should be lower than what we've seen in 2022. 2023, certainly some recovery in inflation dropping off, and then that's filtering into better cost management and cost growth. On Liberty, a continued pressure under margins is evident. That's something we're obviously very focused on. There's various interventions in place to continue to drive value of new business as well as manage the costs and ensure positive jaws in Liberty and improve our margins on that. You know, we have confidence that these various initiatives, technology-wise, products-wise, sales force-wise, including optimizing the sales teams between the bank actually and the Liberty tied and independent sales agents, will drive higher value for your business, improved margins, improved ROE.
I mean, that all forms part of the business case. I mentioned a point earlier on that we do see ZAR 600 million per annum synergies at year three of integration to be achievable. Just on all of those synergies and the business case realization coming together, we plan to give a more comprehensive update when we release our results in March next year. Yeah, I think I've covered OpEx, AR versus SA. Longer term, I've covered that. Liberty, I think hopefully that answers your questions there. Lihle, if you wanna deal with credit charges in Consumer. Over to you.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Arno. Maybe a couple of points from a Consumer and High Net Worth perspective. What was evident in the last couple of months has really been some clients short paying. We're actually seeing just increased milling, some clients, you know, remaining in certain states. We also, I think what we've really been tracking quite closely, we've also seen debt review clients going into debt review also increased. From a portfolio perspective, I think maybe the strain that we've noted has been mostly within the VAF portfolio. We do see that portfolio quite sensitive to the interest rate hikes. We have implemented quite a lot of mitigation across the various portfolios, whether it's, you know, execution of EasySell within the home loans portfolio, debt sales.
Overall, at a portfolio level, we're still comfortable, to be within the, through the cycle, range at a portfolio level. I hope that helps from an overall perspective. Thanks, Arno.
Thank you, Lihle.
Okay. Thanks, Arno. Thanks, Lihle.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Londiwe Buthelezi of Fin24. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. I hope that you can hear me better now.
Yes.
I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take you back to the question of pockets of consumer strain. I just rejoined now as you were addressing it, I just missed out on the response to that. I wondered if you can give us just a little bit more color on which consumer segment and how bad the strain is. If, in terms of figures, how many more, how much delinquencies you've seen so far. The second question has to do with the updates on the activation of MyMo accounts. I thought that we were gonna get a bit of updates on the investigation out of this call. How fast then a bank is with that, how many people has been suspended now?
The last time we spoke to Steve, he said, although the suspensions, he gave us numbers, but there were way, much, many more people that were still being investigated. Just an update there.
Yeah. Thanks, Londiwe. I'll do the MyMo quickly, and then I'll hand over again to Lihle. Lihle, you can just update us again, please, on the consumer point. On MyMo, obviously, you know, we take this matter very seriously. In fact, we've just come through a board cycle where we discussed this in detail. We've done a very thorough investigation on this, independently, our setting investigation. People have been found having conducted themselves in an inappropriate manner, and action is being taken against those people. This investigation is now nearing conclusion, it hasn't been quite concluded yet. I'd like to just pause on that point, we'll update the market through the appropriate channels once that's been completely concluded on that. I can give you...
We can formally release the final numbers and everything like that. We prefer to do it like that. Also internally, we've done a conduct culture review. We continue to assess all sales type incentives, sales type activity and what's driving that activity. We haven't found any significant issues in our setting investigation, not our own. That's our setting. We have found some areas where we can make improvements to make really sure this never happens again. Londiwe, if I can just ask you to leave it at that, we'll update the markets in the near term once we've had all of the work completely done, you can have a comprehensive view on this, if that's okay.
Okay. Thank you.
Lihle, if. You said okay. Great. Yeah. Lihle, if I can just take you back to the consumer credit question and.
Sure.
repeat it and add some color.
Yeah. Happy. Londiwe, maybe let me start here, just to add a little bit more to what I shared earlier. I think the first thing is, just in terms of how we've lent throughout the cycle, we really have not lent into in terms of our risk appetite, we haven't really lent into low income. I think that's the one piece. Our coverage in the cycle has been much higher. We've had, you know, we are currently running a coverage of over 5% we would have seen in June, versus pre-2019, we're running at, like, 4%. That's the one piece. Where we are seeing some pressure in the portfolio right now is really you do get some clients, and it really is a pocket.
We haven't seen, like, a complete blowout, but consumers are under pressure, and therefore you do get pockets where consumers are short paying. We're finding just rollovers, clients milling in one state. Where we are able to, we do restructure some of those accounts. I think the other one that is an indicator for us of clients being under pressure is debt review. We have seen the debt review portfolio grow from where we were last year. The portfolio that's worth mentioning is where we have seen pressure, and we do see that the portfolio has been quite sensitive to the interest rates, increases, has been within the VAF portfolio. That we have seen pressure, in that portfolio in particular relative to where we were in the prior year.
Overall, at a Consumer High Net Worth level, we are pretty much flat to last year from an overall impairment perspective, and we're quite comfortably within our through the cycle range.
Thank you, Lihle.
Thank you. The next question is from Chris Steward of Ninety One. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, Arno. Thank you very much for making the time available this afternoon. Just one quick question from my side, if I may. Can you just give a comment on the ability to expatriate capital out of your, many of your African subsidiaries? I guess therefore, given that, you know, in the absence of the ability to do that, a lot of the heavy lifting on the group dividend has to come from SBSA, where capital levels are slightly less significantly above where you'd like them to be than the balance of the group.
You know, if there were to be long-term issues with regard to expatriation of profits from some of the African subsidiaries, do you foresee that at any stage in the future? Sort of impact your guidance as to where you'd like the dividend payout ratio to end up, please.
Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Actually, we find increasing amounts of capital, I mean, of dividends being able to extract out of Africa regions. We continue to actually attract a sizable portion of the group's dividend coming from Africa regions. Obviously, FTSA makes up the shortfall and other companies also adds into that. There are 2 entities currently, Chris, which are constrained, only 2, and that's Nigeria, and you know about that, and Ghana. On Nigeria, we updated you in August on that. There are constraints, FX constraints. We continue to work with authorities to extract that capital. We managed to extract a little bit of capital there, or have a little bit of that dividend being paid to us, declared but not yet paid dividend.
Currently, as we speak, we are working with the central bank on extracting the rest of it. That's on Nigeria. Obviously, we're also conscious that the elections are imminent there, and we do hope that some of the market constraints, which the current governor has put in place will be reduced in going forward. I hope to come back in March with better news that some of the capital has been extracted there. On Ghana, that's obviously quite a unique situation there. We all know the Ghanaian sovereign is under quite a bit of stress, and there is some capital locked up there, which previously hasn't had any constraints in terms of dividend payments.
That is currently as the Ghanaian entity goes through, or the Ghanaian sovereign goes through some of the restructuring initiated by the IMF, obviously, we expect some short-term constraints there. Chris, on all other entities, including entities like Angolan, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, some of the more difficult entities, we've been able to pay dividends as they fall due and the cash lands in our bank accounts, and is available to paying out to our shareholders. Going forward, I see us remaining comfortable within the 45%-60% payout range. I'd like to say at the top end, towards the top end of the payout range. At this stage, I don't see any points or any reason to alert our investors and shareholders that we will not be able to do that.
Thanks, Arno. Are you at liberty to disclose the rate at which you are able to expatriate capital from Nigeria?
The small portion we've managed to extract was at the official exchange rate, which is still at the NGN 400-NGN 450 type level naira to the dollar.
Okay. Okay, super. Great. Thank you, Arno, very much. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. The next question is from Charles Russell of SBG Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Arno and Sarah. Thanks very much for the time. Just 2 questions, please. On the Africa regions, you've commented that there is a currency tailwind because of the weaker South African rand. Can you comment on the underlying, operational performance of the portfolio, at either 10 months or nine months? Then, in this 10-month update, you didn't include any guidance on where overall earnings lands up. You did at the nine-month update. I think it's, I remember correctly, it was 42% on earnings, 38% on headline earnings. Has there been much of a change in that trend since the nine-month update? Thank you.
Okay. I mean, on Africa regions, the tailwind is obviously used for the relatively weaker rand compared to Africa regions currency, there's translation benefits. If we look at the constant currency numbers I have in front of me here, it's still a very strong performance from Africa region. It's strong across South and Central Africa, particularly East Africa, particularly also in West Africa. Across all of our markets and all of our entities remain profitable on a constant currency basis. That's the one point. Sorry, I should have written that down. Your second question was on?
It was just on the guidance.
Coming.
-an overall earnings level,
Oh, right.
Based on current chart.
Yeah, I think the earnings momentum stays intact. Obviously we don't, we can't guide earnings closely at this point in time. Overall momentum remains intact and we're pleased how the group is developing. Continue good momentum, but we did have a very strong last 2 slash 3 months last year. We must understand the base effect coming there. The trends we've shown at the September numbers, and we've updated and are, you know, continue to point out to strong performances here.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from Harry Botha of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the call. Just a quick question from me regarding the trends you've seen in net interest margins for the second half of the year compared to the first half. I think how are asset pricing and liability pricing trends developing in the second half compared to the headwinds you saw in H1?
Yeah. Great. Actually, if it's in order, Harry, I will ask the business unit heads to talk about specific assets pricing. Overall, at a group, obviously we're seeing margins widening. That's endowment, which is obviously helping us. On the asset side, let's start with Lihle first on consumer, then Barbara for Business and Commercial, and then Brooks on CIB. Lihle, over to you, asset pricing, please.
Thanks, Arno. I think the portfolio where we have seen quite a bit of pressure from a competitive pricing perspective has been within the home loans portfolio, particularly as all the players are back in the market. That definitely we've seen pressure. However, you know, still better than where we were in the first six months. Thanks, Arno.
Barbara?
Thanks, Arno. Very similar to Lihle. We continue to benefit from the endowment environment. Particularly in BCC, we are, you know, largely deposit based, so that naturally translates into our overall margins, so continued upward trend on margins. From a lending perspective, a little bit of compression relative to June, continuing to trend upwards from a year-on-year perspective. Thanks.
Brooks?
Thanks, Arno. Thanks, Harry. In terms of net interest margins for CIB, I think in line with the same as the other BUs, we continue to see that improve over the first half of the year. We are seeing some respite in particularly investment banking prices as we have grown our sort of book in the second half of the year. Net interest margins are improving over the first half of the year for the first 10 months of the year. Thanks.
Okay, thanks. Harry, anything else?
No, that's great. Thanks very much, everyone.
Cool.
Thank you. The next question is from Kevin Harding, Investec Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the time today. Just a couple of questions on asset quality within CIB and BCC. Within CIB, just to get a sense of what the main driver behind the normalization of impairment charges are. You did call out specifically ratings downgrade and specific provisioning. You know, on balance, has it been the new business strain or growth in the book that's driving the high impairment charge or do have the ratings downgrades and specific provisions also had an outsized effect on that credit loss ratio? Within CIB, which sectors saw the highest level of ratings downgrades? I guess what are the drivers underpinning those ratings downgrades?
On BCC, just to get a sense of, with respect to those impairment charges, rising in the Africa regions, is it, you know, weakening credit health or new business strength? Thank you.
Brooks and Barbara, over to you, starting with CIB.
Okay. Thanks, thanks, Kevin. If I just reflect back to the first half of the year, I think the first half of the year particularly related to one SA name in the SA consumer sector that was driving the impairment charge. If we look into the second half of the year, I think it really relates to some of our exposures in Ghana. As Arno has mentioned, there have been some strain in terms of some of our exposure in the Ghana market. We've done some rapid risk reviews, and we continue to do so in Ghana, for the exposures that we have there. We have increased our some of the provisioning there.
The second element, Kevin, really relates to, we've seen some growth, so we are starting to see us raising Stage one and Stage two provisioning, as the loan advances grow. I think, the muted growth, particularly in investment banking in the first half meant that we didn't see a lot of that, in the first half of the year. Into the second half of the year, we are starting to see, some of that growth come through in Stage one and Stage two provisioning. In terms of sectors, there are no particular sectors that we are particularly concerned about.
I think, really relates to some of the exposures that we have in Ghana, where as the country re-rates and has a downward re-rating, we actually held more provisionings, rather less sector specific, but more specific to the geography. That's all from me.
Thanks, Arno. Can I jump in?
Please.
Thanks, Kevin. From a BCC perspective, there's probably two kind of key drivers, I would say. The first one is Nigeria. We are seeing a normalization of our impairments from a Nigeria perspective. You'll recall that last year we had quite significant post-crisis recovery in that environment. Really what we're seeing there is normalization of that credit charge. From a Ghana perspective, I guess a little bit similar to some of what you're seeing in CIB, but also just a number of legacy accounts that we're clearing, you know, we're sort of trending towards rightful stage in line with regulatory requirements. There's some top-up of provisioning that we're seeing in that space. Driving the Ghana performance up. Really West Region being one of the predominant drivers around some of the impairment normalization and increase that we're seeing year on year.
Just in terms of the macroeconomic environment, we have raised some additional provisioning centrally in response to some of the macroeconomic concerns that we have across the portfolio. A little bit forward looking in its nature, given some of the dynamics. Those are the broad themes that we're seeing. None of it really being new business strain. In Ghana, we actually pulled back a little bit on risk appetite for longer term and big ticket type exposures. We're sort of sticking to shorter term and long, lower valued transactions, given the economic environment and the interest rates environment. Hope that helps. Thanks.
Perfect. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you. The next question is from Keamogetse Konopi of Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Arno. Hi, team. Thank you very much for your time. Just a question on asset quality. Can you please give a sense on a follow-up to Kevin's question. Can you please give a sense on whether there has been a diversion in asset quality sort of in other regions, your eastern, southern, south, and central African regions relative to West Africa? Also just given the higher cost growth within Africa region, are you still expecting positive jaws sort of year end in the Africa region?
Yeah, we're expecting strong positive jaws in Africa regions, notwithstanding the much higher costs. Strong positive jaws in Africa regions. On the asset quality, again, maybe it's best to talk to the business units on any specific divergence between the different regions. Lihle, maybe you wanna start first. Do you see any specific divergence in the different regions?
No. There isn't one that really sticks out. Maybe just, I mean, the market for us where, you know, in the east that we have seen, you know, a pickup more than what we sort of, what we expected was from a Kenya perspective. Other than that, I think a lot of the portfolios have been in line with some of the guardrails that we've had in that market. Overall, the portfolio still makes sense. There isn't a particular region to call out. Thanks, Arno.
Okay. Thanks, Lihle. Barbara?
Thanks.
Anything you want to add on this one? Yeah.
No. Nothing specific. You know, there is sort of general upwards trends, Some of them I guess typically there's some elevation in Kenya, but it's not outside of our expectations, Largely offset by some of the positives we've seen in the rest of the region. It's really in our space, it's been really more on the West Region that we've seen that elevation as we've seen normalization. In fact. Thanks.
Brooks, anything you'd like to highlight? You mentioned Ghana already, so that's one of them.
Yeah. Nothing else other than Ghana. Arno, I think the only other name, is a single legacy name in East Africa, but not divergence-
All right.
per se, if it was the question.
Yeah.
Nothing.
Okay. I don't think there's strong regional trends here. but rather sort of localized specific, obligors.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our last question is from Baron Nkomo of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Just two quick questions on Liberty. Number one, how do your life APEs compare to the prior period? Secondly, on your pandemic reserve, you had a balance of ZAR 846 million in H1. How much of that has been utilized so far? Do you intend to release whatever is left into P&L anytime soon?
Okay. Right. On your first question, we see the trends similar to what we saw early on this year. On the pandemic reserve, we are seeing continued higher mortality rates in the people over 60 years of age. We do think those are lingering and longer term COVID type impacts. We are gradually using some of the pandemic provision to reset some of the persistency and mortality curves on the back of that. We still have excess COVID provisions which allow us to continue to manage those excess deaths over the 60-year category. I think in August, we said the provisions for COVID amounted to approximately ZAR 800 million. We've utilized roughly half of that year-to-date. There's roughly around ZAR 400 million left over.
We are probably not gonna release that to P&L, but rather ensure we are appropriately provided for, specifically any lingering longer term COVID type, mortality impacts and providing for those.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from [Bakulu Mbhele] of BofA Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Standard Bank. Thank you very much for the update. Just two quick questions from me. The first one is, if you could just give some color on your customer gains or client numbers, especially in light of obviously the MyMo incident. That's the first. The second question, if you could give some a sense as to whether the benefits you're seeing at least for the second half on higher interest rates is being offset or more than offset by the higher inflationary environment. Thank you.
Okay. The customer numbers I'm gonna refer to Lihle because I assume you're interested mostly in the consumer space where they matter. On the second question, no, the net endowments benefits certainly exceeding the marginal uptick we're seeing in credit impairment charges. Net-net the group at this point in time is benefiting out of the higher interest rates. You would say, how does it also impact the higher costs? Again, net-net they are, the endowment exceeds the additional pressure we are seeing through the cost line. Driving this very strong NII, which I referred to. Lihle, on customer numbers. You just wanna summarize active number of customers year-to-date.
Yeah. Thanks. We continue to see growth in terms of our client numbers. year-to-date I mean, from a year-on-year perspective, we're sitting at a growth of mid-single digits from a growth perspective. The mix is quite interesting. We're actually seeing, you know, faster growth from an affluent perspective. private banking in particular, we've seen that improve quite a bit from last year. As well as we continue to see the growth from a youth perspective. Certainly it has moderated from the highs that we saw in the prior year. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Simon Nellis of Citibank. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks very much for the opportunity. Just a quick one from me. On risk-weighted assets growth, I think from the Pillar three, it was up 7% quarter-on-quarter, so nice acceleration. Can you just unpack that? Was it mostly due to credit growth? It seems so. Do you think this momentum will be continued in the coming quarters? Thank you.
Actually, we're seeing a continued momentum on that sort of basis. Mid to high single digits loans and advances growth driving our risk-weighted assets growth. We're seeing a strong pipeline in CIB in particular, and maybe Brooks can give some details if you need those. We also see continued good growth in the Consumer and in the Business and Commercial segments. Across the portfolio, good growth, but I guess CIB is slightly stronger than some of the other portfolios. Long, medium term and short term, certainly mid to high single RWA growth is what we're seeing coming through.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Simon.
Thank you very much. Sarah, we have no further questions in the queue.
Who's joined the call this afternoon. Arno, would you like to make any closing comments before we close?
Just to thank everyone for dialing in, obviously looking forward to meeting all of you in March, when we will be releasing our numbers. We're looking forward then to talking about a strong year, which we've had this year. Hopefully good momentum behind the business and evidence that to you. Thanks very much for this. I wish all of you obviously a good festive season, hopefully you can take a break, we'll see you soon after that.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's conference, and you may now disconnect.