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Standard Bank Group, Africa’s largest bank by assets, said on Thursday that its half-year headline earnings rose by 5 percent year-on-year despite a challenging operating environment caused by slowing growth across Africa’s commodity-dependent economies.

The Johannesburg-based bank said headline earnings – which measures a company's earnings based solely on operational and capital investment activities – rose to 10.86 billion rand ($816 million) in the first six months of this year, compared with R10.37 billion ($779 million) reported last year.

The total income of Standard Bank grew by 15 percent to R49.86 billion ($3.74 billion) on the back of stronger margins during the period under review. Net interest revenue rose by 18 percent to R27.78 billion ($2.09 billion) due to improved loan pricing while non-interest revenue grew 12 percent to R22.08 billion ($1.66 billion) supported by a growing contribution from the bank’s businesses in the rest of Africa.

“During 1H16 the group continued to reap the benefits of ongoing growth in its businesses both in South Africa and in the rest of Africa franchise,” Standard Bank said. “Rest of Africa legal entities contributed 31 percent to banking activities’ total income, relative to 29 percent in the prior period.”  

Standard Bank's total assets rose 6 percent to R1.55 trillion ($116 billion) in the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, the bank’s total credit impairment charges rose by 16 percent to R5.82 billion ($437 million) due primarily to increased credit impairment charges in corporate and investment banking unit and its personal and business banking unit in the rest of Africa.

Headline earnings from its personal and business banking unit grew by 14 percent to R5.49 billion while earnings from mortgage lending rose 17 percent to R1.23 billion rand.

Corporate and investment banking unit posted headline earnings of R4.98 billion ($374 million), up 13 percent while headline earnings for card products grew 15 percent to R785 million ($58.9 million), supported by strong growth in the rest of Africa.

“Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP is expected to grow at 1.6% with South Africa trending towards zero growth and a contraction in Nigeria. East and South & Central regions are expected to continue to fare better than the oil exporting countries in West Africa,” Standard Bank said. “We are cognizant of the constraints under which our customers are currently operating. Despite increasing our credit provisions to reflect this, the group remains well capitalized and in a position to continue to invest and grow in our targeted sectors and countries.”

Founded in 1862, Standard Bank has operations in 20 African countries and is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of about $14.1 billion as of June 30th, 2016. Nigeria’s Stanbic IBTC Bank is a member of the Standard Bank Group.