DBSA eyes critical minerals infrastructure

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JIMMY MOYAHA: The Development Bank of Southern Africa [DBSA] has released its results for the full year ended 31 March 2026. The business saw record levels – record profits at R7.8 billion in net profits, record disbursements of R20.7 billion.

For a closer look at these numbers, I’m joined on the line by the company’s group chief executive officer, Mme Boitumelo Mosako, to see if we can make sense of the performance.

Mme Mosako, always lovely having you on the show, always lovely catching up, especially for a year where we get to reflect on the best performance of the DBSA in its history. What do you make of the year?

BOITUMELO MOSAKO: Thank you Jimmy, and thank you to your listeners as well.

Yes, it is a stellar performance by the Development Bank of Southern Africa. This stellar performance of R7.8 billion emanates from the trust that our clients still have in our providing solutions for them.

These clients range from sovereigns to municipalities to private entities; to state-owned entities as well.

Secondly, it is the institutional investors, our strategic partners that we continue to work with, and they continue to support us.

Thirdly, it is the support we have from the Ministry of Finance headed by Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana and the National Treasury team.

Jimmy, we also have a strong diversified board that strengthens our governance as an institution and enables quality decision-making.

Lastly, Jimmy, this goes to Team DBSA, a team of professionals that continue to work so hard in delivering this mandate of socio-economic development.

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JIMMY MOYAHA: Mme Mosako, let’s take a closer look at the performance of the business over the last financial year. The Development Bank of Southern Africa does have a developmental mandate as part of its core strategy, and you and I will take a look at that strategy in a second.

But part of the other side of the mandate is running a business that is actually profitable and successful. Now, from a disbursements perspective that means putting capital to work.

You were able to put R20.7 billion of capital to work – and of the net interest income that you received, almost 80% of that came from capital that was put to work, not capital that was left in the bank account.

BOITUMELO MOSAKO: Definitely. When you look at our disbursements, that’s an increase of over 18% from the prior year, and this is as a result of our origination execution strategy that is driven by our decadal strategy. The profile of the investments that we made range from energy projects to water projects – and transport projects as well.

We’ve also managed to disperse R1.3 billion towards municipal infrastructure in the 2026 year.

When it comes to the quality of the book, our current NPL [non-performing loan] ratio is 3.86%, and that is below the targeted range that we have agreed with our board, which is between 6% and 9%.

As an institution, we are very proactive when it comes to portfolio management, staying closer to our clients, and making sure that we timeously capture provisions.

And what we then do is that, because infrastructure is a long-term game, whenever our clients face challenges, we work with them so that we can restructure their facilities and enable them to pay in the short to long term.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Meme Mosako, can we take a look at that decadal strategy in a bit more detail [which], as I heard you mention earlier, our SAfm listeners have not yet had the privilege of learning of. The DBSA team has outlined that that strategy will now include a focus on critical minerals. That is an area that everybody around the world has been having conversations about.

From a developmental perspective, to be able to focus on the infrastructure side of that as part of an ongoing strategy for the DBSA certainly, is quite an important pivot.

BOITUMELO MOSAKO: Yes, most definitely, Jimmy. As a development finance institution, also being located in the region where most of those minerals are found – most of those deposits are found in the southern African region – necessity is laid upon us as an institution to provide and make capital available to enable the extraction of those minerals.

And not only the extraction, but the beneficiation thereof.

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That’s why the infrastructure system is a critical one in a sense that, to be able to beneficiate, there must be energy supply to be able to move the minerals around. There must be the road infrastructure network as well.

So for us it is to ensure that as an institution we support the private sector and also the public sector in taking advantage of this opportunity of critical minerals and the green growth economy.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Mme Mosako, before I let you go, I want to take a look at one of the areas that you finance from a business perspective, and that is municipalities. For many, many finance institutions, municipalities have become a headache for the Development Bank of Southern Africa. They are but a 0.5% headache on your balance sheet, based on the way that they are being managed.

How is it that the Development Bank of Southern Africa has a near perfect collection rate year-on-year with these municipalities?

BOITUMELO MOSAKO: [Chuckling] It’s because we have been working with municipalities for a long time, Jimmy, and because we are a financial institution and a key partner to municipalities in supporting them with infrastructure rollout to enable service delivery. So we are a key partner to them so that they can better service their clients.

That is one of the key reasons that we then work very, very closely with them and even have better collections.

Another thing as well is when they find themselves in a difficult position, we are able to work with them to restructure those facilities so that they are able to pay over time.

Lastly, Jimmy, we not only provide funding to municipalities; we provide technical support as well.

So our value proposition for municipalities ranges from us supporting them with their infrastructure plans, and also in the project preparation to get their projects to bankability as well.

In addition to that, with some we support with augmenting their own capacity to implement projects and to also maintain.

So we provide the full suite of the infrastructure value chain to municipalities. It is not limited only to financing, and that’s why we are not just a funding partner to municipalities, but a strategic one.

JIMMY MOYAHA: A strategic partner, not just to municipalities, but towards the development of infrastructure in South Africa and on the African continent. The Development Bank of Southern Africa has declared a record profit for its financial year ended 31 March 2026.

Thank you so much to the group chief executive officer, Mme Boitumelo Mosako for taking us through those numbers and helping us make sense of that performance.

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