Absa CEO Maria Ramos.(SABC)
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Absa CEO Maria Ramos has admitted
that the bank has been retrenching employees since last year.
The admission is
in contrast to the group's statement in the past few months in which it
stressed that no retrenchments were taking place at Absa.
Today the bank has announced an 8.6%
profit decline. This after it set aside more money for bad loans.
Ramos says: "There have been some retrenchments but we have kept the retrenchments as low as possible. We did that last year and we did that this year. Its also important just to make a point that we have done the restructuring that we wanted to do – so that is behind us now and I think going forward, it is about building our business."
South Africa's largest retail banking group Absa has maintained its dividend payout policy, despite the tough trading conditions.
According the bank's latest financial results dividend payment was raised by 7.9% to R3.15 cents a share. Most of the dividend payments went to embattled British bank Barclays, which controls more than 50 percent of Absa.
