Absa is making two bets at once, and they are really the same bet. In July 2026 the bank teamed up with BYD, now South Africa's second-best-selling electric and hybrid brand, to launch BYD Finance, a package aimed squarely at the fastest-growing corner of the car market. The offer: a below-prime interest rate for the first 1,000 buyers, up to 20% off insurance, flexible instalments and a guaranteed future value on the car.
Riding an electric boom
The timing is pointed. Sales of new-energy vehicles, the catch-all for electric and plug-in hybrid cars, jumped 78.8% in the first five months of 2026 against the year before, with plug-in hybrids surging 681% and pure battery cars up 193%. BYD has ridden that wave to 2,011 units so far this year and a 52-dealer network it wants to grow to 80 by year-end. Charl Potgieter, who runs Absa's vehicle and asset finance arm, says the growth in the bank's own electric-car finance book “suggests consumer attitudes are changing”. For Absa, whose footprint spans 14 African countries, financing those cars is a low-risk way to plant a flag in a market that is finally moving.
The comeback underneath
The deal is a window into a bigger story. Under chief executive Kenny Fihla, who took the wheel after the bank churned through six leaders in six years, Absa grew headline earnings 12% to R24.8bn in 2025, nudged its return on equity, a core measure of how hard shareholder money works, to 15%, and saw earnings from its rest-of-Africa business leap 51%. Yet the market still values Absa at just R192bn, less than half of FirstRand and Standard Bank, with the shares down more than 10% this year.
That gap is the whole opportunity. Coronation's Top 20 fund has bought in, citing “low market expectations combined with a compelling turnaround story”, even as some investors still smart from a R148m pay deal for Fihla that drew a 43% revolt. Whether financing electric cars and leaning into Africa can finally close the valuation gap is the open question, but Absa is starting to look like a bank with a plan rather than a vacancy sign.
