Good evening, everyone, and thank you very much for joining the Standard Bank Group Pre-Test call this evening. My name is Sarah Rivett-Carnac, and I will be managing the call. Joining us today is Arno Daehnke, the Standard Bank Group Chief Financial Officer, as well as Brooks Mparutsa, Barbara Bell, Sayuri Govender, and Villafundenburg, the Business Unit CFOs. This call follows the voluntary trading update we issued on SENS this morning, where we referenced the Group's financial trends for the 10 months to the 31st of October 2025, as well as reconfirming the guidance we provided in August. I will now hand over to Arno to provide some comments related to the announcement, and then we'll open the line for questions. Thank you, Arno. Over to you.
Good evening, and thank you all for joining us. As Sarah noted, I will add some colour to the announcement, and then we will turn to questions and answers as we usually do. Starting with the macroeconomic environment to date, global economic activity has been relatively resilient despite geopolitical and trade policy uncertainty. In November 2025, the IMF revised global growth projections higher for 2025 to 3.2% from 3.0% in July 2025. Yet today, inflation has declined, and this has, in turn, allowed for monetary policy easing across many countries. On average, across the portfolio of 21 countries in which the Group operates in sub-Saharan Africa, inflation has eased. Interest rates have declined in all countries except Botswana and Mauritius. Interest rates increased in Mauritius in February 2025 by 50 basis points to 4.5%, and in Botswana in October 2025 by 160 basis points to 3.5%.
Notable monetary policy easing was observed in Ghana, where interest rates were cut by 900 basis points to 18%, Mozambique by 325 basis points to 9.5%, and Kenya cuts by 200 basis points to 9.25%. While macroeconomic reforms and stabilisation efforts have brought relative stability, particularly in Nigeria and Gorongora, sovereign stress has remained elevated in Malawi and has increased in Mozambique. After successfully implementing reforms to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, South Africa, Nigeria, and Mozambique exited the Financial Action Task Force Greylist in October 2025. This is expected to boost investor confidence and to lower the risk premium for doing business in the countries in time. The IMF expects real GDP growth for the sub-Saharan Africa region to be 4.1% and 4.4% for 2025 and 2026 respectively. In South Africa, the environment has improved as the year has progressed.
The government of national unity tensions have eased, and the structural reforms and associated activity have continued. Inflation has declined, providing scope for interest rate cuts. The South African Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 25 basis points in January, May, July, and November 2025, bringing the repo rate down to ZAR 6.75%. Lower interest rates are positive for client affordability and activity more broadly. In November, the Finance Minister announced the new inflation target of 3%, and this previously was 3%-6%. He also noted that the target has a tolerance band of 1 percentage point either side of 3% and a two-year implementation phase. The Standard Bank Securities Research Team expects inflation to average 3.3% in 2025, down from 4.4% in 2024.
In 2026, they expect average inflation to increase to 3.9%, but to remain within the tolerance band, thus enabling the South African Reserve Bank to ease further. The current base case is one further 25 basis point cut in quarter one 2026, and then a pause until 2027. Growth in South Africa has been lower than expected at the beginning of the year. Confidence was dented by trade and tariff-related uncertainty, and the government of national unity spent in the first half of the year. There are, however, nascent signs that confidence is improving. For example, consumer confidence has improved from lows seen in the first quarter of 2025, and financial confidence has increased for the first time in three years. On the 14th of November 2025, S&P Global Ratings upgraded South Africa's local currency credit rating to BB+ with a positive outlook.
The outlook reflects the possibility of stronger-than-expected growth despite trade and tariff-related headwinds. We expect South Africa's real GDP growth to be 1.0% and 1.3% for 2025 and 2026, respectively. Our current expectation for 2025 is slightly higher than the 0.9% we expected in August this year. Turning to operational trends for the first 10 months of the year. For reference here, where I refer to the current period, I'm referring to the 10 months to 31st of October 2025, and likewise, the prior period is the 10 months to 31st of October 2024. Overall, the Group's performance trends in the current period were broadly in line with those reported in the first half of the year, starting with banking and our three banking business units. Banking revenue grew by mid to high single digits period on period.
Net interest income growth was driven by good book growth, supported by strong origination in investment banking, particularly relating to energy and infrastructure, particularly relating to the energy infrastructure sector. Improvements in disbursements noted in PPB and BCB in the six months to June 2025 have continued into the second half. Higher repayments in Standard Bank offshore remained a drag on loan growth. Deposit growth has remained strong in both South Africa and Africa regions, reflective of the strength of our transactional franchises. As noted in the BA900 data, deposit growth in South Africa was 8% year-on-year in September 2025, and this continued into October 2025. NII growth was dampened by the negative endowment impact of lower average interest rates. In PPB South Africa, competitive pricing pressures continued, particularly in mortgages. Non-interest revenue growth remained robust.
A larger and more engaged client base, combined with increased client activity, led to strong net fee and commission revenue growth. Continued uncertainty and market volatility supported strong trading revenue momentum. Turning to banking costs, despite an increase in activity-related costs, cost growth remained well contained. Banking revenue growth was slightly ahead of cost growth. Moving on to credit, the Group's credit loss ratio for the 10 months to 31st of October was around the middle of the Group's through-the-cycle range of 70-100 basis points. Corporate and investment banking credit payment charges were higher period on period, both for low base in the prior period. We hold provisions in Malawi and Mozambique at the back of the sovereign stress, which I referred to earlier.
Personal and private banking credit payments were lower period on period due to a slowdown in early arrears formation and lower inflows into non-performing loans, as reported previously and in line with expectations. Business and commercial banking credit payment charges were also lower period on period, driven by improvements in both South Africa as well as in Africa regions as a consequence of deliberate risk remediation and concentration risk management. Next, our insurance and asset management business. IAM continued to deliver a robust performance. Earnings were higher period on period, driven by an improved performance in the South African retail life insurance business and an improved claims ratio in the South African short-term insurance business. The former was driven by improved persistency and risk experience. The latter was assisted by the absence of catastrophic weather-related events year-to-date.
Turning to ICBCS, ICBCS continued to perform well, supported by a strong performance by the precious metals business. Earnings from our 40% stake contributed positively to Group earnings growth in the current period. As expected, the currency impact on our performance was muted. Moving on to capital, the Group remains well capitalised and liquid. We published our Pillar Three report for the quarter ended 30th of September 2025 last week. The Group's common equity tier one ratio as of 30th of September 2025 was 13.6%. Turning to our guidance for the 12 months to 31st of December 2025, as mentioned before, our guidance remains unchanged. We are committed to delivering. One, banking revenue growth of mid to high single digits, with net interest income growing at low to mid single digits and non-interest revenue at high single digits.
Number two, banking revenue growth at or above operating expense growth, resulting in flat to positive jaws and a flat to lower cost-to-income ratio year-on-year. Third, a Group return on equity well anchored in the Group's target range of 17%-20%. We look forward to closing the chapter on our SPG 2025 strategy and related targets when we report our 2025 financial results on 12th of March 2026. We remain confident we will deliver against the SPG 2025 targets we laid out in August 2021. We will provide guidance for 2026 financial year when we report our results in March. Lastly, early in the year, we provided you with the Group's new core targets for the period 2026 to 2028. For reference, these are to deliver compound average headline earnings growth per share of 8%-12% and a return on equity of 18%-22%.
We will host a Capital Markets Day to unpack the strategic and financial drivers that underpin these targets. This event will take place on 26th of March 2026. Further details will be provided closer to the time. In closing, in the 12-10 months to the end of October, the Group continued to perform well, supported by our well-diversified portfolio of businesses and regions. In recent months, we have seen an improvement in disbursement, activity, and credit trends in South Africa. We expect this momentum to continue into 2026. In Africa regions, our businesses continue to perform well in terms of growth and attractive risk-adjusted returns. Thank you. Sarah, I will hand back to you for questions.
Thank you, Arno. Please, can we ask that you use the raise your hand function, and we will turn on your cameras and your mics? Or alternatively, you can also submit your questions through the chat function, which you should find either on the top or the side of your screen. Thank you very much. I think we can start with Harry.
Good afternoon. Hope you can hear me okay. Is it possible to give us a sense of the net interest margin and asset growth trends? Has asset growth accelerated in the second half of the year? Have we seen, I guess, further dilution on net interest margin? Is there any guidance on average shares in issue and share buybacks in the second half, please?
Yeah, hi, Harry. Nice to see you on the screen. Thank you for that. On NIM, when we saw you in the middle of the year, we did mention an anticipated contraction in NIM. We do expect anticipated contraction, as we had guided at that point in time. On asset growth, as I mentioned just now, we see continued very strong growth in CIB, well in the double digits year-on-year growth. Certainly, as I mentioned just now, in BCB and PPB, the disbursement rates have increased in the second half of this year and continue to accelerate, voting well for 2026 and going forward. Did you have a third question? Oh, share buybacks. Oh, share buybacks, yeah, importantly, yeah. Yeah, Harry, for now, probably no share buybacks worthwhile noting further executed in this current period.
Great, thank you.
Thank you. Next, we can go to James Stark. Thank you.
Hi, Arno, Sarah, and team. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my side. First up, and maybe if you can pass this to Villa, if you can just comment on the performance of the SIP in Liberty in the second half, particularly in relation to the ZAR 120 million gain you saw in the first half, given the favourable bond moves we've seen over the past few weeks. The second question, perhaps if you could just expand a little bit on the loan growth, touching on the kind of product types that are seeing the best disbursement volume growth pickup in the past month or two across CIB, PBB, and BCB. Thank you.
Okay, Villa, over to you for the SIP, please. Can't see you yet, Villa. Are you there? There we go.
Good afternoon, everyone. Hello, James. Thanks for the question, James. Just two things that drive the shareholder portfolio is the rates, as you point out, and the property valuations. Keep in mind we did flag at a half year that in March this year, we implemented the OCI treatment on our rates exposure, though, in the shareholder portfolio. We do not expect big volatile numbers or to be as sensitive as it was in last year's numbers because of that OCI treatment. On the property valuations, those happen once a year by an independent valuator. Those are done in December in the year. The lead indicators on that portfolio continue to look good and favourable compared to previous years.
Thanks, Villa. On the asset growth side, as I indicated, James, it is the investment banking origination. The energy and infrastructure is a large portfolio, which is growing strongly. We're also seeing good growth across other sectors as well, such as financial institutions, the consumer sector, diversified industries, telecoms and media, actually across the board. We're seeing good growth. James, you would have seen from the BA900 information, South Africa overall is growing pretty robustly. I think I saw 10% overall. In that context, we are growing even faster than the South African market. We are winning the deals in South Africa. Of course, the African region has a lot of momentum as well, as it normally has in this particular business. On BCB, business lending disbursements are up materially. We're seeing strong growth there. Also, in the business VAF business, we're seeing growth there. Also, in PPB, we're seeing mortgage disbursements also up quite nicely.
Bearing in mind we've got a very large base there, we've done very strong origination a few years ago. There are base effects which you need to take into account. You will not see the overall book growing as fast as we are seeing the disbursements. Some reasonably good growth was in personal unsecured loans and somewhat also in PPB VAF. We also are seeing a pickup in credit card turnover transactions. Not so much on the actual balance sheet side, but certainly credit card turnover. We have seen some good momentum there. As part of Black Friday, actually, just last Friday and on Cyber Monday today, we have seen good activity on those products as well. Thank you.
Okay, I think next if we can go to Baron. Baron Comal.
Yeah, good afternoon. Just two questions. Firstly, how sustainable is the strong deposit growth into 2026? Can you comment on how you see the funding mix evolving in light of the strong growth? Secondly, can you comment on the performance of Liberty's life insurance new business sales in the period, specifically guaranteed annuities? Thanks.
Thank you very much. I'll talk about the deposit growth. And Villa, if you can jump on the screen again for the life insurance. Yeah, we think it's sustainable in retail certainly and in BCB as well. In CIB, actually, across all of those products, we're seeing high single digit, if not low double digit deposit growth. That is a positive development. We're seeing deposit growth quite a bit stronger than the asset side, than loan growth. The funding mix, we continue obviously to access wholesale funding to support the CIB business in particular.
Because CIB is growing quite strongly, the asset side, as I spoke about just now, we continue to raise wholesale funding in bond markets, in loan markets, and in other wholesale markets as well. You probably will not see a substantial shift in the funding mix, but we remain active in capital markets. In fact, we are having a record issuance in this particular year, capital markets on data instruments. Villa, over to you on the life business, please.
Good afternoon, Baron. Thanks for the question. We have continued to see the same patterns as we had at half year. To your points, any guarantee-type products, the sales continue to track behind last year, including annuities, whereas our single premium investments that are more direct investments into the market continue its upward trend.
Thanks very much, Villa. Can we move to Ross Crooker, please? Thank you, Ross.
Thanks, Sarah. Evening, everyone. Thanks for the call. Just to follow up on Harry's question on NIM, with regard to the endowment effect in particular, firstly, if you could just comment on how policy rates are playing out across all your exposures or all your exposed countries versus your August expectations. If you could just clarify on your NIM expectations, it sounds like into Q4 and into Q1 next year, Q4 this year, Q1 next year, that it's pretty much in line with what you previously commented. What you previously expected in August. Just to add on with regard to potential M&A targets in Kenya, are there any, if you could just remind us, the particular characteristics you're looking for?
Yeah. Interest rates overall in the portfolio are handing out as we had expected. Our base case assumption was that we will only have a rate cut in quarter one next year, not last week in South Africa. Sorry, thank you, Sarah. That is an extra 25 basis points. On NIM, previously we guided 10-15 basis points compression. It probably will be at the lower part of that compression, so not quite as high as 15 basis points versus 10. We continue to hedge in South Africa. As you well know, that hedge program has dampened the exposure significantly. Currently, per 100 basis point average interest rate cuts in South Africa is around ZAR 800 million in our eyes sensitivity, not too dissimilar to what we discussed in August. Even though in Kenya, yeah, cannot really comment on that. We are looking at multiple opportunities, M&A, organic or inorganic growth there. Once we have an appropriate target, we would like to think about if such a target actually is materializing, then we will let the market know. At the moment, there is no certainty or clarity on that.
Thanks, Arno.
Great. Thanks very much. I think if we can go to Charles Russell next, please. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Sarah. Good afternoon, Arno. Just a couple of questions from my side. The first one is, how material is the extra provision that you are taking against the Mozambique sovereign-created exposure? I understand that this falls outside of the banking credit loss ratio that you normally guide on. Maybe if you could make reference to the prior year impairments on financial investments, I think that was ZAR 712 million. That is number one. Number two, just a comment on the general, sorry, global markets trading revenue growth relative to June's 20% level. You mentioned the FX translation of Africa as being relatively muted. Can you comment on Africa's overall growth in ZAR relative to South Africa's overall growth? Thank you.
Right. On the extra provision, looking in the context of the group overall, it's not material. We have already provided what we think is a well-provided provision, which is ready in our P&L and in the numbers I've spoken to now. As I indicated, I wouldn't say it's material in the context of the group. It's quite material in the context of the country, of course. That is outside of the CLR, that provision held against financial investments. You're 100% right on that. When we speak to you in March, Charles will update that. We will give you the actual quantum of that number. I don't want to talk to that quantum now. It would not be appropriate.
We have our external auditors currently auditing our numbers and looking into that as well. That is underway currently. GM Trading Review continues to perform well. Checking well ahead of last year, and the momentum has gone, it seems like, into the fourth quarter as well. On FX, apologies. I made a note of that. Sarah, just help me with the last question was.
The last question was on the growth of African regions relative to South Africa.
Yeah. Yeah, Africa regions is again having a good year. And South Africa is also having a good year. Must keep that in mind as well. South Africa is performing better than we have had in the past. Africa regions are a little bit dampened by this provision, which I spoke about just now in Mozambique and in Malawi. I mentioned both of those. Mozambique is the larger one. Malawi is much smaller. Yeah, overall, we see good performance in both of those jurisdictions. South Africa is growing stronger than it has been in the past. Not stronger than African regions, but stronger than we have seen through the cycle growth of South Africa.
Thank you.
Okay, great. Thanks. We go to Teto Mataneng.
Is that the question in the chat?
Let me read out the question in the chat. What is Standard Bank exposure to China-denominated trade and funding? How quickly could that exposure shift to RMB settlements? That is the first question. The second question is, to what extent was geopolitics a factor in signing up for CIPS?
The shift to RMB settlements is obviously a gradual long-term shift. I would not expect that to be rapid in the near term. We obviously work with ICBC and various other Chinese clients to settle in RMB, but it's not a material part of our business. We all know that the dollar, in fact, with the other day is 89% of currency trades has a dollar on one side or the other side. That's probably going to be trending in the medium term. We wouldn't be weighed by geopolitics for the signing up of CIPS. We have important clients in China. We've got important clients in various markets, as well as in the European and Middle Eastern markets. We think about our clients first and foremost and not about geopolitics. There's a question in what are the projected balance sheet effects. These would not be material in the context of the group. If I understand you correct, you certainly wouldn't be picking that up as a stakeholder.
Okay, great. Hopefully, that answers the questions in the chat. Can we go to okay, great. Thank you. Can we go back to James Stark, please?
Thank you, Sarah. Arno, just to follow on the NIM discussion, and in particular regarding your hedging program in South Africa, are you able to give us a sense of perhaps the average duration or average maturity profile of the hedging program?
Yes, three to five years, James.
Thank you.
I think Ross Krige maybe. His hand is still up. Is it a new hand?
Ross, go back to you. If you've got an additional question.
Yeah, thanks, Arno. Thanks, Sarah. Since we have a bit of time, I thought I might as well ask just on retail asset quality. So just firstly, it sounds like that's broadly a nine. Is that a fair comment with your August expectations? I do not know if you mind just elaborating a bit by product segment, how is that playing out, or any product segments performing better than you might have expected in August in South Africa in particular, in PPB and BCB? Secondly, just on the you referred to the Black Friday. I know it is early days, but I wonder if you could put that in the context of the last few years, if we can take from your comments on SA being better this year. I guess that is an overall comment for the year. Are you seeing a ramp-up more than you have seen in the past, or understandable if it is too early to comment on that as well?
Yeah, maybe I'll say, so Yuri, she's on the call, talked about the retail asset quality, and Black Friday is just, yeah, just the last business day, trading business day. Probably can't comment too much on that unless, say, you have some high-level comments you can give. Over to you on the asset quality, and then Robert, maybe if you want to also comment on the asset quality in BCB. Okay, sure. Yuri's going to come on now.
Thanks, Arno. Thanks for the question, Ross. Maybe I'll just run through the portfolio to give you a sense. Arno has spoken about it earlier. Just in terms of asset quality, from a home loans perspective, we are seeing that muted growth comes through. Arno mentioned the disbursements being quite strong.
Just to maybe mention on the home loan side, because we had such strong disbursement growth previously, and you would recall a few years ago, we had disbursement numbers sitting in about the ZAR 70 billion range when it came to the COVID years when we were the only players who were taking on the home loans book at that point in time. That runoff factor is quite big. When we look at what's coming onto the book now, and you'll see from a market share perspective that our market share is reducing slightly, and that's because we are looking at profitable business as opposed to taking on business and growing market share. You'll see a slight deterioration come through, although we'll still be number one. We're still number one on our new business market share.
The home services book, which is the biggest book in our portfolio, is still looking really good. It's profitable. It's still very strong. I think very comfortable on that side. We're also seeing strong disbursements like Arno mentioned in our personal lending book. Also double-digit growth there, as well as in the VAF side. A good solid growth coming through on our asset quality. When it comes to Black Friday, we have seen an improvement year- on- year. That is a pleasing result. I think we generally have seen good growth come through during the Black Friday and the weekend as well. It is Cyber Monday today. It is a little bit early to see that full picture. From what we can see, we are seeing good improvement year on year. Thank you.
Say, whilst you're just on, could you possibly comment on the credit performance in the different products if possible? Sure.
Yeah, sure. I think just from an overall credit perspective, we are seeing improvements in our NPLs. We have mentioned previously that we have seen that our NPLs have peaked, and we've mentioned that previously. There is a slow and steady recovery that we are seeing. That is positive and will positively contribute to our credit numbers for the year compared to the prior period. That is definitely positive. As I say, it is a steady recovery. We're not expecting anything that is significant to come through, but good indicators from client behaviour and what we're seeing. The big piece there on NPLs is that we do still sit with that legal book that does have quite a long tenor.
We'll continue to see that wind down very slowly and that mix being a bit bigger in that stage three bucket because we've got lower inflows into NPLs. It's a positive story, I think, on the home loan side. We are seeing overall as well, just a general improvement in terms of recoveries and repayments. There is definitely a better collection strategy, and that's helping us on the credit side as well, as the fact that with the interest rates reducing, that is actually giving a bit more affordability, lending more affordability to our clients, and we're starting to see that come through. That's also contributing to that disbursement improvement and activity that we're seeing in the second half of the year. Slow and steady is the message. Thank you.
Thank you sayuri. Barbara , you just want to comment on credit quality, the BCB book, please?
Sure, Arno, and thanks for the question, Ross. I think Arno already touched on the growth that we're seeing. SA has seen a slightly faster growth rate in the second half than we saw in the first half, really translating those disbursements. In terms of the actual credit performance, very similar performance to the performance you saw at half year. We are seeing pretty good credit out of South Africa. The VAF portfolio is still slightly higher than the prior year, but that really is more the normalisation of the portfolio. The previous year, we had some recoveries and some driver updates that naturally softened the blow, where this year we're seeing a lot more normalisation. There has been nothing surprising or untoward in the second half relative to the first half.
From an Africa regions perspective, the remediation, the work that we have been doing from a risk perspective continues to bear fruit. We see a very similar performance in the second half relative to the first half from an impairment perspective. Slightly higher in the West regions, but very good performance out of the East and South and Central portfolio. Offshore remains elevated. As you are aware, there is some remediation we are doing on that portfolio, and that continues into the second half, but we should be through that going into 2026. Thank you.
Thank you, Barbara. I know it is two questions there. Brooks, maybe you can take both of them. One deals with the petroleum and commodity sector in Africa. The other one deals with infrastructure advances. If I can leave that over to you, Brooks, from a CRB point of view.
Brooks, just checking you can see the questions. Otherwise, I'll read them out for you.
Yes, I can see the questions. Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. In terms of sort of our investment in the Middle East, as you're well aware and have probably heard through the press, we've recently opened our Egypt rep office, and that is enlarged to capture the trade flows between the Middle East, North Africa, and Africa regions. What we've seen is our clients in the Middle East, as well as in North Africa, are very keen on investing in Africa as a whole. We're really, from our approach, really back our clients with that.
It was a natural fit for us to look at the trade corridors in as much as we have, for example, focused on the China trade corridor into Africa, to focus on the GCC, as well as North Africa into the rest of Africa. This is not unsimilar to what we've done with our global multinationals, whether those be in Europe or North America. In terms of the sectors that our clients are interested in, it's actually quite wide-ranging. Diversified industrials, which includes the food production sector, is one that our clients are interested in. Energy, as well as infrastructure, our clients are very interested in that coming out of that region, as well as TMT, which is telecoms and media. Quite a broad range of interest from our client base.
They see our increased presence, particularly in GCC, as well as North Africa, being able to enable them to access our expertise and experience into Africa. We see it bearing fruit, certainly in the medium term. It is certainly a differentiator for ourselves compared to our competitors. In terms of the other question, infrastructure advances, infrastructure advances have continued to grow very strongly. If I look at the 10 months to October, this is actually above where we expected to be at the entrance stage. As Arno has mentioned, we have continued to see very good growth in energy and infrastructure for the 10 months, and we expect that to continue for the remaining two months. Our pipeline remains strong, and hopefully, we will be able to close a few more of those significant deals between now and the end of the year. I will hand back to you, Sarah.
Great. Thanks very much. The next hand is from Muyurin Rajarantham. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Sarah. Thanks for killing my name there, but.
Sorry.
It's okay. I'm just teasing. Good afternoon, guys. I was driving when Arno was talking about South Africa versus Africa Ops. I hope I heard it right. He used the word good to describe both, notwithstanding Mozambique and its issues. Now, if you had to look at it in terms of real performance, that is, excluding blended inflation in Africa versus excluding South African inflation, would the description still hold? Because you've had lots of moving parts in the inflation in Africa, I just want to get a sense of what is the real inflation-adjusted performance in these two big geographies, Africa versus South Africa. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, the easiest way to look at that is to think about constant currency performance in Africa regions versus rand performance, because ultimately, inflation will result in high interest rates and a weakening currency, and that comes through as a headwind in currency translation. We've been saying throughout this year that the currency translation impacts are not material, and that is still correct. There is not a material adjustment between the constant currency earnings we measure in Africa regions versus the actual rand earnings we receive in our accounts, not nearly as material as we had two years ago when there was a very sizable adjustment. That's maybe the best way to look at it from a constant currency versus a real point of view, as you say.
Real performance is normally the earnings growth above inflation, and obviously, we have a good print above inflation in both Africa regions measured in rand, as well as in South Africa measured in rand, obviously. There is strong real earnings growth. I hope that answered your question.
Okay. I have got one more hand. We can try again.
There is a question on dividends. Maybe I could take that once the other hand goes up. Sarah, there is a question on dividends. Updated in terms of dividends being settled? We obviously pay dividends twice a year. The payout ratio measured in earnings is normally between 50% and 60%. Over the last few reporting cycles, it has been around 55%-56%. We continue to expect dividend payments in March between 50%-60% of earnings, probably closer to the middle of the range at that point in time.
Thanks. We can go back to Tetseto. Not sure whether you want to ask a question or put it in the chat.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can. Yes, we can. Please go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, no. Just to go back on East Africa, Arno, you said that you're considering both organic and inorganic, and you could go M&A. Let's assume that you go M&A route. How much can your balance sheet take if you were to go truly transformational M&A? I know it's hypothetical.
Yeah. We would never. The beauty of our portfolio is the diversified nature. No one single country is excessively large. You would know that our largest country is Nigeria, and that approximately is 5%-6% of group earnings. We would not want to suddenly have an entity which accounts for much more than that. I think that is destroying some of the diversification benefits, which we worked hard to achieve, and which has been very rewarding for shareholders, as I have often told you. It is not so much on what the balance sheet can take, it is what is appropriate for the mix of the business overall. We want to be in the top three in the market in Kenya, top three. It does not mean we need to be the best or the biggest. We want to be the best, of course, but not the biggest. If we can double our business, that would be a good measure, right? The group has substantial financial resources. We could make very large acquisitions. I doubt we would go into that realm and have a very large transaction. Right.
Is there a specific area that you might be, I mean, retail, commercial, that you think you could back up on?
Yeah, I think across retail, commercial, and small enterprise, all of those areas are profitable for us and are important to grow in. So it's not one single area we are looking at.
Thank you, Arno.
Sure. Thank you.
Great. I think that's all the hands, and that's all the questions in the chat. I'll hand back to Arno. Arno, if you want to make any closing remarks.
Yeah, thanks very much. We appreciate you dialing in and all the relevant questions and the interest you've demonstrated. I just want to remind you again, our results next year in March or on the 12th of March next year. Please join us then. Of course, we've got our Capital Markets Day, which we announced today. That's very exciting for us. That is on the 26th of March, so two weeks later. Hopefully, you can also join us for the Capital Markets Day, and then we will unpack our 2026 to 2028 performance then and how we are going to be achieving and hopefully exceeding our targets at that point in time. I wish you all the best for the festive season, and thank you again for the interest in dialing into the call.