Madam Maria Ramos, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Barclays Africa Group said the ambition for growth in their businesses in the rest of Africa was equally important as well as their sector-led propositions and revitalised service offering.

Madam Ramos, speaking through a teleconferencing on the Bank’s full year financial results said, there were opportunities to increase returns on their existing assets but “we are also going to build and scale new capabilities to drive this growth.”

“Our ambition is for a 12 per cent market share of banking revenues across Africa, doubling in size and becoming a banking group in Africa we will be proud of and it’s a bold plan for growth,” she added.

She said the Group reported a four per cent increase in headline earnings in 2017 as impairments declined substantially from a high base in 2016 and a return on equity of 16.4 per cent remains strong. She said the headline earnings, a measure analysts use to gauge profitability, grew despite the continued slow economic expansion in some of the Group’s largest markets, including South Africa, where the Group generates approximately 80 per cent of its income.

The CEO said Barclays Africa Group would continue to have solid balance sheet assets of 1.2 trillion South Africa Rand and a strong capital and liquidity levels.  She said as a Group, they were redesigning and re-engineering their processes to improve customer experience and to support businesses with new pioneering propositions.