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South Africa: Absa Gets Provisional Licence for Namibia
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Regis Nyamakanga
Johannesburg
ABSA Group, which controls SA's biggest retail bank, has been granted a provisional banking licence to set up a bank in Namibia, the company said yesterday.
This comes after Absa said its plans to acquire parent company Barclays Bank's African operations last year were abandoned as South African regulators allegedly pressured the lender into pulling out of the deal on the grounds that its management was "thinly" spread.
Maxwell Pirikisi, head of corporate affairs at Absa Africa, said a provisional licence was the first step in pursuing the possibility of entering the Namibian market.
"T he Bank of Namibia granted a provisional licence to Absa last month. We are now busy with the application for a full licence."
The other three of SA's big four banks, Standard, First National and Nedbank, operate in Namibia alongside local lender Bank Windhoek.
If Absa is granted a licence, it will be operating in four African countries outside SA. Absa owns 50% of Banco Comercial Angolano, 80% of Barclays Bank of Mozambique and 55% of the National Bank of Commerce in Tanzania.
Absa had a 34,4% shareholding in Bank Windhoek, through Capricorn Investment Holdings, until November 2006. It is still the service provider for Bank Windhoek clients visiting SA.
Although Absa had canned plans to acquire Barclays' nine African operations, a Cape Town-based analyst said yesterday that the lender was still keen to grow its presence on the resource-rich continent.
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"Under the Absa-Barclays deal of 2005, Absa was to acquire Barclays Bank's operations in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania, Seychelles and Mauritius, but this was later turned down by the Reserve Bank," the analyst said.
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