Banking

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa)) – Absa Group Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Maria Ramos will step down after overseeing the split from Barclays Plc, an alliance blamed for the loss of retail market share at South Africa’s third-largest bank. The stock rallied the most among its Johannesburg-based peers on Tuesday in the wake of Ramos’s pending exit. Absa, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, fell behind after Britain’s Barclays acquired control in 2005. Now that the U.K. bank has sold…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghana’s central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate to a six-year low, bucking the worldwide trend toward tightening and pushing the local currency close to the weakest on record. The Bank of Ghana reduced the rate by 100 basis points to 16 percent, Governor Ernest Addison told reporters Monday in the capital, Accra. All eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg said the rate would be held. “The bank’s latest…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) –  Significant constraints on banks’ capacity and willingness to absorb potential increases in government financing needs in the event of a shock are intensifying government liquidity risks in Angola (B3 stable), Bahrain (B2 stable), Ghana (B3 stable), Kenya (B2 stable) and Lebanon (Caa1 stable) Moody’s Investors Service said in a report today. The report, “Sovereigns — Africa and Middle East, Domestic banking constraints intensify liquidity risks as global markets tighten”,…

ABIDJAN (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, plans to seek a third five-year term in next year’s presidential polls as his ruling coalition is set to face stronger competition for votes, according to three people familiar with the matter. Ouattara, 77, has informed his inner circle in the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace coalition about his intentions, even though he hasn’t decided when the plan will be announced, said the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The possible replacement of the governors of three key African central banks this year could yield an unexpected surprise: policy stability. Time is running out on the first terms of Nigeria’s Godwin Emefiele, Kenya’s Patrick Njoroge and South Africa’s Lesetja Kganyago. While all three are eligible to serve another term at the helms of their central banks, this isn’t guaranteed. Still, deepening institutional strength means there should be broad buy-in of the policies…