Access Bank, a subsidiary of Access Holdings, a ₦1.28 trillion market capitalization financial services group, has completed the acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank’s operations in Angola and Sierra Leone. These acquisitions are expected to increase the bank’s share of corporate and SME banking in both markets.
“This merger marks another important step towards our broader vision to become the most respected African bank in the world,” said the bank’s Managing Director Roosevelt Ogbonna in an NGX filing dated 27 November 2024. There are opportunities for further expansion, with plans to acquire Standard Chartered’s subsidiaries in Cameroon, Gambia and Tanzania.
The banking group, which has more than 60 million customers across three continents, has been on an acquisition spree since 2018. This aggressive growth is driven by Standard Chartered’s decision to exit seven countries in Africa and the Middle East and shift its focus to faster-growing markets in the region.
The European lender planned to completely exit the Angola, Cameroon, Gambia, Jordan, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe markets in 2022 and put them up for sale. It also closed its retail banking operations in Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire to focus solely on corporate banking. These decisions were favourable for Access Holdings, which seized the opportunity as a means of expansion.
Read More: Access Bank UK Acquires Mauritius Bank, AfraAsia
In June 2024, the bank acquired Tanzania’s African Banking Corporation Holdings Limited (ABC), merging it with Standard Chartered’s consumer, retail and commercial banking business. Kondia exclusively reported that the deal, with a total value of 23.32 billion naira (US$13 million), to be paid over three years, will consolidate the financier’s presence in East Africa.
