Citi Business News has gathered South African Bank FirstRand Bank, will begin commercial operations in Ghana early next year.
Citi Business News can confirm the bank has secured a provisional banking license from the Bank of Ghana to commence operations.
FirstRand, is South Africa’s largest bank by earnings and market capitalization.
This is not the bank’s first stint in Ghana, it was one of the main bank’s that expressed interest in acquiring Merchant bank now Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) last year.
CEO of First Rand Sizwe Nxasana in an interview on the banking group’s full-year results said the Bank Of Ghana expects the bank to put in $60m as part of the capital requirements.
According to him ‘ We have Ghana where we have a provisional banking licence. We are hoping we are going to be up and running there early next year. Mozambique is doing very well for us. It needs a bit of support,” he said.
Asked what the plan was in Ghana, Mr Nxasana said: “We want to do everything and have a mini-FirstRand.” The group understood the Ghanaian economy and had deployed capital in the West African country’s real estate, oil and gas, ports and power industries.
By: Vivian Kai Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana