Bancabczambia

COMPANY PROFILE

2014

BancABC Zambia

260 211 257970-6 | www.bancabc.co.zm

company profile

Fresh thinking meets smart banking Editorial: Tim Hands Production: Ajuanne Payne

With over a decade experience of operating in Zambia, BancABC Zambia, formerly African Banking Corporation, today offers a vast range of banking products to its customers from its 22 branches, spread throughout the 10 provinces of Zambia.

A number of sub-Saharan African banks operate under the parent company of ABC Holdings Limited, whose brand offers a diverse range of financial services, from personal, business and corporate banking all the way through to asset management, stockbroking and treasury services.

BancABC’s stated aim is to be the preferred banking partner in Africa, guided always by its core values of professionalism, people, innovation, passion and integrity, through making available world class financial solutions in order to build profitable, lifelong customer relationships.

Formed as a result of a series of mergers and acquisitions of Southern Africa-based financial institutions, the Group boasts a strong geographical footprint as well as a sound understanding of the range of financial markets within the region, which has allowed it to effectively undertake operations in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as a group services office in South Africa. From its head office in Botswana,

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BancABC’s heritage dates back to 1956, while its re-branding from African Banking Corporation to its current name came in April 2009, to coincide with its expansion into retail banking.

A recent restructuring exercise within BancABC units in Zimbabwe and Mozambique is the result of Atlas Mara — a company co-founded by exBarclays Plc chief executive officer Bob Diamond — being on the verge of acquiring a controlling shareholding in the pan-African banking group.

BancABC Chief Operating Officer, Francis Dzanya has stated that, while these changes were not caused by the impending Atlas Mara transaction, the group continues to “make good progress to secure regulatory approvals for the Atlas Mara deal”, adding that the group has received “overwhelming support from all the regulatory authorities on all the approvals we have sought,” and that confidence is high that, “all the necessary approvals will be obtained before the transaction closure dates.”

BancABC Zambia

This reshuffle will see Hashmon Matemera returning to group level after a four-year stint as Managing Director for the Zimbabwean unit.

Dzanya said Matemera, having taken over the reins in 2010 to replace Zandile Shaba, will head the newly created Special Operations Unit “which will be managing our non-performing and classified asset portfolio across the group and disposal of non-core banking assets”. Matemera had been seconded to the Zimbabwe operation following the country’s adoption of a multi-currency system, in order to manage the transition from the Zimbabwe dollar era, and also to lead the rapid roll-out of BancABC’s retail banking model. Exemplifying BancABC Zimbabwe’s steadily rising performance over the years, its total asset market share rose from the 3% seen in December 2009 to a peak of 10.7% in December 2012. This diminished slightly to 9% in December last year, but last year saw instead customer deposits leap to 9.3% from 3.9% in December 2009.

EXPANSION BancABC’s presence in Zambia will be bolstered yet further this year by the opening of two more branches, following an impressive set of first quarter results seeing the bank post a net profit after tax of K12.6 million. Managing Director Clergy Simatyaba detailed that the bank’s costs to income ratio had fallen markedly to 49% in this quarter, from 62% in 2013, and praised the Bank of Zambia’s move to tighten monitory policy in a bid to arrest the fall of the Kwacha: “This performance was largely assisted by strong regulatory capital position which exceed the minimum requirement of K520 million.” Simatyaba also spoke of the banks intentions to expand its footprint this year, laying out the extensive plans to expand of these successes. “BancABC is poised for further growth, especially with the recent announced acquisition of ABCH” “BancABC is poised for further growth, especially with the recent announced acquisition of ABCH, our holding company by Atlast Mara Co-Nvest Limited, a

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company profile

company owned by Bob Diamond and Ashish Thakkar, both renowned successful business men.

The bank looks to grow by opening two more branches in Nakonde and Mazabuka whilst upgrading our Choma and Mpika branches.”

“With mobile money on their phones, people won’t have to carry a wallet and a mobile phone at the same time” Another central focus for the coming year is the limitation of ‘bad debt’, an amount owed by a debtor that is unlikely to be paid, as Chief Finance Officer, Moses Vera explains: “While our revenues and costs have improved, bad debt becomes an area of concern

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on which our team is now focusing more attention.”

With the launch of its mobile money service, originally as a pilot project in July of last year, Mobile Telecommunication Company (MTN) reports that this partnership with BancABC helped it to acquire over 170,000 mobile money customers and 340 agents. This success resulted in the Central Bank granting a full operating license in January this year, to allow MTN the right to offer the service to the Zambia populace.

A strategic partnership between MTN and BancABC, it is one which offers both MTN subscribers and BancABC customers the opportunity to load and withdraw money from their mobile phones, both by using the BancABC branch network, as well as various other MTN agents. MTN Chief Executive Officer, Abdul Ismail, speaking in Lusaka

BancABC Zambia during the official launch of the MTN Mobile Money Service, spoke of the benefits the service will offer to MTN subscribers: “We are happy to have this joint partnership with BancABC whose role will be to assist in agent liquidity and providing cash in and cash out services for our customers. This essentially means that customers will now have a wider range of access points for Mobile Money transactions because of BancABC’s wide foot print.”

A further, and important, benefit brought by the service is that of security, as Ismail explains: “With mobile money on their phones, people won’t have to carry a wallet and a mobile phone at the same time. The mobile phone now becomes their wallet and the significance of this is that there is a reduced risk element because it will no longer be necessary for people to carry cash around.” Availability of the MTN Mobile Money product will be ensured by the wide mobile coverage of MTN in Zambia, even in the remotest parts of the country, a development which is in line with the Bank of Zambia’s (BoZ) objective of maximising financial inclusion through the development of a mobile money account which is secure, convenient and reliable.

Embodying the importance placed by BancABC on

the relationships it builds with its customers is the innovative housing loan scheme it has introduced, designed to cater for the low earners among the country’s workforce.

Simatyaba explained the rationale behind the bank’s decision to tailor the much-needed product to lowincome groups in the country: “The bank has seen that there is a high housing deficit in the country and I think the low-income earners have not been managing to get housing mortgages.”

“Our housing loan scheme will assist a lot of people in the low-income brackets” As such, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with Lafarge Cement in September last year for the supply of cement to the clients who would receive the loans, with Simatyaba stating that the product, “will assist a lot of people in the lowincome brackets looking at the housing deficit the country is experiencing,” and goes some way toward achieving the partnerships it seeks based on trust, respect and understanding, to promote loyalty and secure continued business well into the future.

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The vision of the company is to offer solutions and harness the resources in order to invest in other portfolios which fall within our areas of strength.

New Techniques Zambia Limited was formed in 2007 by Zambian entrepreneurs with a view to create employment and help in growing the country economy and provide high level services to the clients.

The Incorporation came about after realizing how a sister Company New Techniques G.D which was set-up in 2002 had performed as a business name; this showed a lot of promising business growth which would be beyond what a business name could do.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ELECTRICAL • Domestic and Industrial • Repair of Electrical equipment • Computer Networking Installation and Support • Installation and support of cctv,alarm,biometric access control systems Our main objective is to give quality electrical installation and competitive pricing; this will help reduce cost of installation on the market to make it affordable for everyone at all levels of life.

UPS New Techniques is one of the leaders in UPS service provision. The UPS supply, installation, maintenance and repair are the strongest areas of operation of New Techniques Zambia Limited. The vast experience of our technical team has enabled us to attend to any UPS problem.

PLOT NO:1423, Mwalule Road, P.O. Box 33763, Lusaka, Zambia +260 211 233131 info@new-techniques.co.zm

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