Absa Bank Limited (ABL), formerly known as Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with cor ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It is licensed by the

Reserve Bank of South Africa The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is the central bank of South Africa. It was established in 1921 after Parliament passed an act, the "Currency and Bank Act of 10 August 1920", as a direct result of the abnormal monetary and financial condit ...

, the

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

and national banking regulator.

Location

The bank's headquarters are located on the 7th Floor of Absa Towers West, 15 Troye Street,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, South Africa. The geographic coordinates of the bank's headquarters are: 26°12'23.0"S 28°02'57.0"E (Latitude:-26.206389; Longitude:28.049167).

Overview

Absa Bank Limited is one of the largest commercial banks in South Africa. As of 31 December 2018, the bank's total assets were ZAR:1,289,000,000,000 (US$73,691,500,000). Absa Bank Limited is a 100 percent subsidiary of

Absa Group Limited Absa Group Limited (ABGL; formerly Barclays Africa Group Limited), and originally Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a South African-based financial services group, offering personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and invest ...

, the

Pan African Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...

financial services conglomerate headquartered in

, with subsidiaries in 12 African countries, whose total assets exceeded US$91 billion as at October 2019. The shares of the

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

of Absa Group Limited, are listed on te

JSE Limited JSE Limited (previously the JSE Securities Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange) is the largest stock exchange in Africa. It is located in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, after it moved from downtown Johannesburg in 2000. In 200 ...

, where they trade under the symbol AGL.

History

According to the archives of maintained by

Barclays Bank Plc Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

, Amalgamated Banks of South Africa Limited was incorporated in 1986, by "the merger of UBS (United Building Society) Holdings, the Allied and Volkskas Groups, and certain interests of the Sage Group". In 1992 Absa acquired the entire shareholding of the Bankorp Group, which included TrustBank, Senbank and Bankfin. The name of the bank's holding company was changed to

in 1997. In 2005 Barclays acquired a 62.3 percent majority stake in ABSA, and Barclays' existing subsidiary in South Africa and Barclays Capital's business were subsequently operated under the ABSA brand. Twelve other financial subsidiaries in 11

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

n countries were made part of the group. Absa Group changed its name to

Barclays Africa Group Absa Group Limited (ABGL; formerly Barclays Africa Group Limited), and originally Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a South African-based financial services group, offering personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and invest ...

. In 2016, Barclays Bank Plc, which owned 62.3 percent of Barclays Africa Group (BAG), the then parent company of Absa Bank Limited (the South African subsidiary), decided to divest its majority shareholding in BAG, worth £3.5 billion at that time. In 2017 Barclays reduced its shareholding in BAG to 14.9 percent. After that, BAG re-branded to Absa Group Limited in 2018. Under the terms of that re-brand, Absa had until June 2020 to change the names of its subsidiaries in 12 African countries.

Governance

The bank is governed by a seven-person

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. The chairperson of the board is

Sello Moloko Matthews Sello Moloko (born 6 July 1965) is a South African businessman, banker and corporate executive, who serves as group chairman of Absa Group, a large pan-African financial services group, with subsidiaries in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Maur ...

, one of the non-executive directors. The managing director and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Arrie Rautenbach Arrie Rautenbach (born circa 1966) is the chief executive officer (CEO), of Absa Group Limited, a financial services conglomerate, with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, and subsidiaries in eleven sub-Saharan countries. Prior to his c ...

References

External links