Shares of FirstRand, one of South Africa’s top four banks, gained 1.8 percent during Tuesday’s late trade on the Johannesburg bourse (JSE) after the lender said it is likely to post a pleasing set of figures for the six months ended December 2013.

The stock surge confirmed the market’s positive reaction to an announcement that the  lender is expecting a 20 percent growth in profits for the financial period under review.

This would be considered a significant boost as it comes on the back of a period that saw an increase in the non-performing loans (NPLs) in the past couple of years.

Barclays Africa Group, which was spawned after Absa, South Africa’s biggest retail bank, acquired all the African assets of its parent company, Barclays, in a deal valued at billions of South Africa rands, posted good results last week.

In addition, yesterday Nedbank, another major South African lender, said it had posted a 16 percent surge in headline earnings to R8.6 billion ($785m) in the year ended December last year.

FirstRand has representative offices in Nigeria and India and major operations in Kenya and South Africa.