BARCLAYS Africa CEO Maria Ramos is looking to engaging with the Central Bank and other authorities in Nigeria, as she seeks to expand the bank’s footprint in the country.
Ramos is integrating operations in 13 African countries as the bank sets its eyes on Nigeria, along with Egypt and Zimbabwe.
“We have applied for licences in Nigeria. It’s something that we have been looking at for quite some time,” she said at the weekend.
The consolidating operations around 13 African countries comes as the group plans to add three more regions to its portfolio of assets.
Earnings from the rest of Africa operations are expected to grow faster than from SA this financial year.But some market commentators believe Barclays Africa still has to focus on cutting costs on the rest of the continent and grow revenue.
As part of the consolidation Ramos and her team are keen to expand into Nigeria and acquire the Egyptian and Zimbabwean operations from parent Barclays plc. Barclays Africa has subsidiaries in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The operations outside SA are starting to generate more to the bottom line and currently make up about 20.3% of Barclays Africa group revenue.
This means the banking group has so far reached its financial commitments to generate 20%-25% of its income from African operations outside South Africa. Consolidating two banking operations in Tanzania will be another challenge.
