Absa Bank Mauritius Limited (ABML), formerly known as Barclays Bank Mauritius Limited, is a commercial bank in

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

, licensed by the

Bank of Mauritius The Bank of Mauritius () is the central bank of the Republic of Mauritius. It was established in September 1967 as the central bank of Mauritius. It was modelled on the Bank of England and was, in effect, set up with the assistance of senior off ...

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

Location

The headquarters of the bank are located at Absa House, 68 Wall Street, Cybercity,

Ebene ''Anadenanthera peregrina'', also known as yopo, jopo, cohoba, parica or calcium tree, is a perennial tree of the genus ''Anadenanthera'' native to the Caribbean and South America. It grows up to tall, and has a thorny bark. Its flowers grow ...

. Ebene is a town approximately , by road, south of

Port Louis Port Louis (, ; or , ) is the capital and most populous city of Mauritius, mainly located in the Port Louis District, with a small western part in the Black River District. Port Louis is the country's financial and political centre. It is admi ...

, the capital and largest city in the country.

Overview

Absa Bank Mauritius 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 September 2010, the bank had assets of MUR:127,295,000,000 (US$3.343 billion), with shareholders' equity of MUR:16,011,000,000 (US$420.494 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 archives of Barclays Bank Mauritius, the oldest bank in Mauritius that became a component of the bank, is The National Bank of South Africa, which established a branch in the country in 1919. In 1925,

Anglo-Egyptian Bank The Anglo-Egyptian Bank was a British overseas bank established in 1864. History The founding banks were Agra and Masterman's Bank, La Compagnie Financière Maurice de Cattauï and the General Credit and Finance Co., and the bank incorporated ...

, Colonial Bank and National Bank of South Africa were merged to form

Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) 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 ...

. Since then the bank went through mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Barclays Bank Mauritius operated as a branch of

Barclays 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 ...

, until 1 June 2013, when it was incorporated as Barclays Bank Mauritius. That same year, the bank became a member 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 ...

, with Barclays Plc holding a controlling 62.3 percent majority ownership.

Name change

In 2016, Barclays, which owned 62.3 percent of

(BAG), the then majority shareholder of Barclays Bank of Mauritius Limited, 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 has until June 2020 to change the names of its subsidiaries in 12 African countries. In Mauritius, the re-brand concluded on 10 February 2020, when both the bank's legal and business names became Absa Bank Mauritius Limited.

Governance

The bank is supervised by a ten-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 Iqbal Rajahbalee, one of the non-executive directors. The managing director and CEO is Ravin Dajee.

References

External links

Company Website
{{coord, 20, 14, 36.5, S, 57, 29, 37.5, E, display=title Banks of Mauritius Absa Group Limited Banks established in 1919 1919 establishments in Mauritius Companies based in Ebene, Mauritius