I just reviewed Nedbank’s results for 2025, and there are several interesting developments worth highlighting. The South African bank is showing solid growth driven mainly by its digital ecosystem, particularly through Avo.

What caught my attention is the performance of its Greenbacks platform. With more than 700,000 active members, the gross merchant value increased by 35% during 2025. That’s quite robust growth considering the macroeconomic environment. In addition, Avo Auto has surpassed the R1 billion cumulative sales milestone, showing that the diversification strategy within the ecosystem is working. Since they launched SuperShop years ago, they already have more than 24,000 businesses registered on the platform.

In hard numbers, diluted earnings per share increased by 3%, and headline earnings reached R17.2 billion. Return on investment held steady at 15.4%, above the group’s cost of capital. What’s interesting is that they achieved this while facing headwinds, including slower income and the sale of their stake in Ecobank.

From a strategic perspective, 2025 was a year of significant changes. They substantially restructured their retail and corporate banking divisions, creating new, more focused clusters. In addition, they completed the full acquisition of iKhokha, the fintech, to strengthen their services strategy for PYMES. They also exited their stake in Ecobank and announced plans to acquire a controlling stake in NCBA Group in África Oriental for approximately R13.9 billion.

Looking ahead, CEO Jason Quinn expects the underlying growth momentum to continue into 2026, although there will be pressure from the normalization of impairments and lower interest rates. He projects an ROI above 15% for this year, moving toward 17% in the medium term. It seems the bank is positioning itself for stronger growth across the African continent with a clear focus on the SADC regions and África Oriental.