African Bank Limited, is a

retail bank Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking servi ...

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 ...

, that offers financial products and services. The Bank is licensed as a "locally controlled bank" by the

South African Reserve Bank 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 ...

(SARB). Headquartered in

Midrand Midrand is a former municipality in central Gauteng, South Africa. It is situated in-between Centurion and Sandton and now forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History Midrand was established as a municipality in 198 ...

, the bank has a countrywide branch distribution network in addition to a full digital channel offering; as well as sales, collections and customer service Contact Centres.

Overview

As of 30 September 2022, African Bank Limited had total assets worth ZAR:28.695 billion, with shareholders' equity of ZAR:11.080 billion. In 2019, the bank, its subsidiaries and affiliates employed 3,886 people.

History

At a 1964 National Federal Chamber of Commerce (NAFCOC) conference a call was made for the creation of a bank for Black South Africans. Sam Mostuenyane, who led NAFCOC at that time, attempted to raise the capital to start the bank but failed. It was only in 1975 when R1 million was raised and met Reserve Bank approval, that it was founded. The original ''African Bank Limited'', was established on 31 July 1975, and was a subsidiary of ''African Bank Investments Limited'', then a bank-controlling company listed on the

Johannesburg Stock Exchange 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 2003 ...

. The first branch opened in

Ga-Rankuwa Ga-Rankuwa is a large settlement located about 37 km north-west of Pretoria. Provincially it is in Gauteng province, but it used to fall in Bophuthatswana during the apartheid years, and under the North West province until the early 2000s. ...

near

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

. In 1995, the bank experienced financial difficulties and its controlling stake was purchased for R100 million by Natal Building Society and New African Investments Limited. They restructured the bank from a deposit taker into a lending bank and relisted it on the JSE. In 1998, Theta Investment Group Limited acquired the banks licence. In 1999, Theta changed its name to ''African Bank Investments Limited'' (ABIL). On 10 August 2014, the original African Bank Limited was placed under curatorship by the South African Reserve Bank, under the terms of the South African Banks Act, Act 94 of 1990. Thomas Winterboer was appointed as curator to implement the restructuring proposal and manage the affairs of the Bank, subject to the supervision of the Registrar of Banks. It was established that original bank had poor lending practices that resulted in write-downs of bad loans. The SARB announced a restructuring proposal, which received support from a consortium of six South African banks and the

Public Investment Corporation The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) is a South African state-owned entity (SOCNational Government of South Africa''Public Investment Corporation SOC Ltd (PIC)'' on www.nationalgovernment.co.za) with R2.339 trillion (USD 145 Billion) o ...

. A new banking group, ''African Bank Holdings Limited'' was created to assume the viable assets and some of the liabilities of the old bank. The legacy bank and the compromised part of the business was renamed ''Residual Debt Services Limited'' (RDS). RDS surrendered its banking license on 4 April 2014. On 4 April 2016, the new African Bank Limited opened its doors as the new entity, with the required licenses and registrations required by the various regulators in place. In May 2022, African Bank announced a deal to acquire Grindrod Bank in addition to their holding company Grindrod Financial Holdings. African Bank stated that the acquisition worth R1.5 billion, will aid the introduction of business banking into their services since Grindrod Bank has 26 years of specialisation in the corporate and investment banking sector.

Shareholding

As of September 2022, the shareholding in 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 African Bank Limited, was as depicted in the table below.

Leadership as of September 2021

The chairperson of the 12-person board of directors is Thabo Dloti, a non-executive director. The chief executive officer is Kennedy Bungane.

References

External links