FNB maintains resilience to adverse financial context

Last week, FNB Mozambique announced its financial results for the year ending 31 December 2024, reflecting the adversities faced not only by the bank, but also by some key sectors of the economy.

FNB Mozambique highlighted a series of efforts it is making to prepare the bank for the future, reinforcing its fundamental pillars to position itself for long-term growth.

The bank reported a weak performance as demonstrated by pre-tax losses of MZN 561.7 million in the financial year ended December 31, 2024, against pre-tax profits of MZN 361.8 million in 2023. The bank explained that these results were largely influenced by one-off operating losses that were incurred mainly between October 2024 and the end of the year, high credit impairments related to anticipated losses from the post-election demonstrations in 2024, as well as the high costs of continued investment in critical infrastructure and technological transformation.

Reflecting on the results, the newly appointed CEO of FNB Mozambique, Dennis Mbingo, mentioned that “in addition to the extraordinary expenses that were exclusive to 2024, changes in interest rates and a challenging foreign exchange market put pressure on our margins”. 

Despite these pressures, the bank used the past year to accelerate a broadrestructuring  designed to future-proof the business by strengthening its digital backbone and building resilience into core banking systems and processes. Following the launch of the FNB ON banking app in late 2023, the bank has continued to invest in its digital presence and expects to further enhance this platform, making the FNB ON App the primary transactional platform for both individual and corporate customers.

“While our financial results reflect a challenging operating environment, they also mark a turning point in our journey. The work we have undertaken over the past year has been fundamentally aligned with our strategic intent to create a bank built around the customer, and which is even more aligned with other successful FNB businesses on the continent. We will increase our focus on technology to help find solutions that best serve our customers, offering easy, simple and secure solutions to their financial needs.

Internal efficiency and customer-centric innovation are expected to produce sustainable returns in the medium to long term”, added Mbingo.

The bank is confident that its focus areas will enable more consistent profit generation, even in an evolving economic and regulatory environment.

“The past year has been a year of investment and transition. What lies ahead is a digitally enabled banking model, built to serve and focused on accelerated growth,” added Mbingo.