·Plans platform to connect all African SMEs
·Invest $80m in I.T to process 200m transactions per seconds
Access Corporation Plc, the parent company of Access Bank Limited, said it is working to raise additional capital in dollars with the first tranche to be completed in the first half of next year.
Managing Director/Chief Executive, Access Bank Limited, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna disclosed this at a media parley in the headquarters of the Corporation in Lagos.
He said: "We're still out in the market over the course of the next few months to raise additional capital.
"The structure of the instrument is still something we're working our preference will be a dollar instrument as against naira.
"It's helped that the government has issued a diaspora bond, so at least there is some reference that as an institution we can use.
"So we will be keen to look for an opportunity to do a dollar capital market issue. The form and the contours that it will take is still work in progress. Our view is that there will be two tranches of that capital instrument.
"We're still going through the process, and I think the DFI will be quicker to close than the other one. And by first half of next year we should see the DFI tranche completed."
Speaking further, Roosevelt disclosed that the Corporation is investing massively today to build a bank of the future.
He said for example the company this year spent $80 million in technology that will enable it process 200 million transactions per second.
"We are not building for today. Today, I don't have 20 million customers. I have 65 million customers, and the projection is by 2027 I have 125 million customers, but I'm projecting 200 million transactions per second," he said.
He also disclosed that the Corporation is working on a platform to register all Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs in Africa as part of its drive to support African businesses and boost cross boarder trade. He said: "
We want to register every SME on the continent on one platform. Those SMEs should be able to borrow on that platform, and they should be able to sell on that platform."
