Absa Bank Limited, formerly known as the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make a profit. It can also refer to a bank or a division of a larger bank that deals with whol ...

in South Africa and the flagship bank of

Absa 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 corporation, multinational banking and financial ...

. It is licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

and national banking regulator.

Location

The bank's headquarters are located on the 7th Floor of Absa Towers West, 15 Troye Street,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa. The geographic coordinates of the bank's headquarters are: 26°12'23.0"S 28°02'57.0"E (Latitude:-26.206389; Longitude:28.049167).

Overview

Absa Bank Limited is one of the largest commercial banks in South Africa. As of 31 December 2018, the bank's total assets were ZAR:1,289,000,000,000 (US$73,691,500,000). Absa Bank Limited is a 100 percent 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 ...

, the Pan African 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 African countries, whose total assets exceeded US$91 billion as at October 2019. The shares of the

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 ...

of Absa Group Limited, are listed on te

JSE Limited 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 ...

, where they trade under the symbol AGL.

History

According to the archives of maintained by

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 ...

, Amalgamated Banks of South Africa Limited was incorporated in 1986, by "the merger of UBS (United Building Society) Holdings, the Allied and Volkskas Groups, and certain interests of the Sage Group". In 1992 Absa acquired the entire shareholding of the Bankorp Group, which included TrustBank, Senbank and Bankfin. The name of the bank's holding company was changed to

in 1997. In 2005 Barclays acquired a 62.3 percent majority stake in ABSA, and Barclays' existing subsidiary in South Africa and Barclays Capital's business were subsequently operated under the ABSA brand. Twelve other financial subsidiaries in 11

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

n countries were made part of the group. Absa Group changed its name to

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 ...

. In 2016, Barclays Bank Plc, which owned 62.3 percent of Barclays Africa Group (BAG), the then parent company of Absa Bank Limited (the South African subsidiary), 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. After that, BAG re-branded to Absa Group Limited in 2018. Under the terms of that re-brand, Absa had until June 2020 to change the names of its subsidiaries in 12 African countries.

Governance

The bank is governed by a seven-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 ...

. The chairperson of the board is

Sello Moloko Matthews Sello Moloko (born 6 July 1965) is a South African businessman, banker and corporate executive, who serves as group chairman of Absa Group, a large pan-African financial services group, with subsidiaries in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Maur ...

, one of the non-executive directors. The managing director and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

is Arrie Rautenbach.

References

External links