Mercantile Bank Limited is a South African

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 ...

, founded in 1965. It was previously called Bank of Lisbon International. The bank is headquartered in

Sandton Sandton is an upscale commercial and residential district north of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. It forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The name of the city came from the combination of two of its suburbs, ...

, South Africa, and provides products and services in

retail banking 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 ...

corporate finance Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and anal ...

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

, equity brokerage and

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Mercantile Bank Holdings Limited, which in turn is owned by the holding company registered in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

–

Caixa Geral de Depósitos Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) () is a Portuguese state-owned banking corporation, and the largest bank in Portugal, established in Lisbon in 1876. CGD now has presence in 23 countries spanning four continents through branches, representative ...

S.A. In 2019, Capitec Bank bought Mercantile Bank South Africa. In October 2019, the South African Minister of Finance and other Regulatory Authorities formally approved Capitec's purchase and acquisition of Mercantile Business Bank. As of November 2019,

Capitec Bank Capitec Bank is a South African retail bank. As of August 2017 the bank was the second largest retail bank in South Africa, based on number of customers, with 120,000 customers opening new accounts per month. Overview The bank maintains 850 ...

bought all the shares of Mercantile Bank Ltd from CGD and serves as its business banking branch. It has more than 15 branches in South Africa, and employs between 501 and 1000 employees.

History

The bank was founded in Republic of South Africa in 1965. It obtained a

banking licence A banking licence is a legal prerequisite for a financial institution that wants to carry on a banking business. Under the laws of most jurisdictions, a business is not permitted to carry words like a ''bank'', ''insurance'', ''national'' in th ...

in 1989; and became a fully owned subsidiary of

Mercantile Bank Holdings Limited Mercantile Bank Limited is a South African commercial bank, founded in 1965. It was previously called Bank of Lisbon International. The bank is headquartered in Sandton, South Africa, and provides products and services in retail banking, corp ...

, a

bank holding company A bank holding company is a company that controls one or more banks, but does not necessarily engage in banking itself. The compound bancorp (''banc''/''bank'' + '' corp ration') is often used to refer to these companies as well. United States ...

incorporated in January the same year. In 1995, the bank merged with Bank of Lisbon International (BLI) – a bank established in 1965. Shortly thereafter in 1996, the bank holding company name was changed from 'Mercantile Bank Holdings Limited' to 'Mercantile Lisbon Bank Holdings Limited' (MLBH). Earlier in 1995, the

state-owned bank –

(CGD) had acquired a 27% stake in MLBH through its subsidiary

Banco Nacional Ultramarino Banco Nacional Ultramarino (, BNU; ; en, National Overseas Bank) is a Macau banking and financial services corporation. It was a Portuguese bank with operations throughout the world, especially in Portugal's former overseas provinces. It ceased e ...

(presently the

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

based Banco Nacional Ultramarino SA). In August 1998, Mercantile Lisbon Bank Holdings (MLBH) was listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange South Africa (now JSE Ltd). In March 2002, CSD stake in MLBH increased to 64.8%, and by September 2004 to 91.75%. In 2005, the name 'MLBH' was changed back to Mercantile Bank Holdings Limited. In 2012, it was delisted at 52 cents per share. Mercantile Bank is a division of Capitec Bank Limited.

External links

http://www.mercantile.co.za
*https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/352193/capitec-completes-acquisition-of-mercantile-bank/

References

{{Witwatersrand companies Banks of South Africa Banks established in 1987 Companies based in Sandton

History

See also

External links

References