Absa Bank Botswana Limited, formerly known as Barclays Bank of Botswana Limited, is a commercial bank in

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

, licensed by the

Bank of Botswana The Bank of Botswana (BoB; ) is the central bank of Botswana. When Botswana gained independence from Britain in 1966, the country was part of the Common Monetary Area, Rand Monetary Area (RMA). In 1974 Botswana withdrew from the RMA, and the Ban ...

, the country's central bank and national banking regulator.

Location

The headquarters of the bank are located at the 5th Floor, Building 4 Plaza, Plot 74358, in the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

Gaborone Gaborone ( , , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Botswana, largest city of Botswana, with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its metropolitan area is home to 534, ...

, the capital and largest city in Botswana.

Overview

Absa Bank Botswana is a large financial services company, serving corporate clients, high networth individuals, retail customers and

small and medium enterprise Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by many national agencies and international organizat ...

s. As of June 2019, the bank had assets of BWP:17,963,238,000 (US$1.609 billion), with shareholders' equity of BWP:2,103,780,000 (US$188.438 million). This bank is a subsidiary of

Absa Group Limited Absa Group Limited, commonly known and stylized simply as absa (formerly the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA) until 2005 and Barclays Africa Group Limited until 2018), is a multinational banking and financial services conglomerate ba ...

, a financial services conglomerate, headquartered in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, with subsidiaries in 12

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n countries and with assets in excess of US$87 billion as of 30 June 2017, whose shares of

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

trade on the

Johannesburg Stock Exchange JSE Limited (previously the JSE Securities Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange) is the largest stock exchange in Africa. It is located in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, after it moved from downtown Johannesburg in 2000. In 2003 ...

under the symbol ABG.

History

According to the bank's website, it started operating in Botswana as a branch of

Barclays Bank Plc Barclays PLC (, occasionally ) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services ...

of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, in 1950. In 1975, Barclays Bank of Botswana was incorporated as a legal business entity and continued to operate in the country, as a subsidiary of Barclays. On 19 June 1989, the shares of the bank were listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange, where today, they trade under the symbol ABBL.

Name change

Barclays Bank Plc, which owned 62.3 percent of

Barclays Africa Group Absa Group Limited, commonly known and stylized simply as absa (formerly the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA) until 2005 and Barclays Africa Group Limited until 2018), is a multinational banking and financial services conglomerate ba ...

(BAG), the then majority shareholder of Barclays Bank of Botswana Limited in 2016, decided to divest its majority shareholding in BAG, worth £3.5 billion at that time. In 2017 Barclays reduced its shareholding in BAG to 14.9 percent. Subsequently, in 2018 BAG re-branded to Absa Group Limited. Under the terms of that re-brand, Absa had until June 2020 to change the names of its subsidiaries in 12 African countries. Beginning in December 2019, Barclays Bank Botswana Limited began re-branding to Absa Bank Botswana Limited. The re-brand concluded on 10 February 2020, when both the bank's legal and business names became Absa Bank Botswana Limited.

Governance

The bank is supervised by a five-person

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

, chaired by Oduetse Andrew Motshidisi, one of the non-executive directors. The managing director and CEO is Keabetswe Pheko-Moshagane.

References

External links

Official website
{{coord, 24, 39, 02, S, 25, 54, 14, E, display=title Gaborone Absa Group Limited Companies of Botswana Banks established in 1975 1975 establishments in Botswana Companies listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange