Banking

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,…

PORT LIOUS (Capital Markets in Africa) – SBM Holdings Ltd., owner of Mauritius’s second-biggest lender, plans cautious expansion in India after a streak of loss-making years, said Andrew Bainbridge, the group’s new chief executive officer. SBM, which has been in India for about 22 years, was granted a wholly owned-subsidiary license last year. Banking activities will be conducted under the new legal entity from the second half, subject to approvals, Bainbridge said, insulating it from…

  LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – It looked like a done deal between a Nigerian bank in need of funding and a U.S. private-equity firm keen to stump up the cash. But even after documents were signed it fell apart, showing how tough the African nation can be for investors. Milost Global Inc. said it penned an agreement in November to provide $1 billion of financing that would’ve given it 60 percent of Unity Bank…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s newly constituted Monetary Policy Committee held the nation’s main lending rate at its first meeting this year to continue fighting inflation that’s above target. The committee that admitted five members last month unanimously decided to leave the benchmark interest rate at 14 percent, central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele announced at a press conference in the capital, Abuja on Wednesday. That was in line with predictions of all but…

KAMPALA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Uganda’s economy may double in size by 2025 as investments in the oil industry stimulate growth, the country’s biggest lender said. The $15 billion expected to be spent before crude production starts in 2020 will benefit a range of sectors, boosting the East African nation’s gross domestic product to $60 billion, Stanbic Bank Uganda Chief Executive Officer Patrick Mweheire told reporters Wednesday in the capital, Kampala. Participation of local companies in…