Banking

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Fitch Ratings expected Angola’s banking sector to remain weak and fragmented in coming years, despite the Banco Nacional de Angola’s (BNA) recent efforts to increase the banks’ capital requirements. It said that eight out of the 29 banks operating in Angola will have to increase their paid-in capital this year in order to comply with the BNA’s latest capital requirements. It noted that Angolan banks will be required to…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mozambique’s central bank reduced its benchmark lending rate for the fifth consecutive time as inflation slowed, allowing the regulator to try to spur an economy that’s forecast to expand at the slowest pace in 18 years. The Monetary Policy Committee cut the benchmark interbank rate, known by its Portuguese acronym MIMO and introduced in April, by 150 basis points to 16.5 percent, Banco de Mocambique Governor Rogerio Zandamela told reporters Wednesday…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Financial technology firms MyBucks SA and Naga Group AG agreed to form a strategic partnership that would pair Naga’s cryptocurrency technology with the Luxembourg company’s banking applications in the African market, according to people familiar with the matter. MyBucks will offer Naga’s cryptocurrency wallet — a mobile payment technology — to its 1.5 million clients in Africa, Australia and other markets, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday,…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Barclays Africa Group Limited, South Africa’s third-biggest bank, said the group will be split into retail and business banking, investment banking, the rest of Africa and wealth and insurance. David Hodnett, deputy chief executive officer of the South African bank who became finance director in 2010, is taking a two-month sabbatical, the Johannesburg-based lender said in the statement on Monday, without detailing his reasons. Arrie Rautenbach becomes chief executive…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Standard Bank Group Ltd. is seeking a banking license in Senegal after opening in Ivory Coast as the lender expands in West Africa’s French-speaking countries. Africa’s largest lender, which opened in the world’s biggest cocoa producer on Monday, will focus on corporate and investment-banking clients after obtaining the license in 2016, Sola David-Borha, the Johannesburg-based company’s chief executive officer for Africa, said in an interview in the commercial capital, Abidjan. Standard…

KAMPALA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Uganda’s central bank maintained the benchmark interest rate at a record low as risks to the east African nation’s inflation outlook remain balanced. The key rate was kept at 9 percent, Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile told reporters Monday in the capital, Kampala. Inflation slowed to 2 percent in March, the weakest level since 2014, and the risks to the outlook for price growth in Africa’s biggest coffee exporter are balanced,…