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The Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria’s Access Bank Plc, Herbert Wigwe, has disclosed that the leading financial institution plans to launch operations in four more countries on the African continent. The disclosure comes just days after the bank acquired Kenya’s Transnational Bank Ltd.
The target countries
Wigwe disclosed this yesterday during an investor conference call in Lagos following the release of the company’s latest earnings report for the nine months ended September 30th, 2019. According to him, the countries Access Bank Plc is considering for the expansion move include the following:
- South Africa;
- Mozambique;
- Ivory Coast;
- Liberia;
- Senegal; and
- Angola.
The plan
It should be noted that the expansion effort is a short-term plan. Wigwe told analysts and other stakeholders that “by this time next year we would probably have added four more subsidiaries…”
[READ MORE: Access Bank, UBA, GTB, 7 others increase loans by N1.84 trillion in 9-month]
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Aggressive expansion
The bank has been on an aggressive expansion drive since late 2018 when it first admitted that it was indeed set to acquire Diamond Bank Plc. Earlier this month, the bank announced that it had acquired a 97% stake in the Kenyan bank mentioned above.
But the Nigerian lender still has its eyes set on many other African markets. Specifically, Access Bank is targeting at least twenty-two more countries on the continent. It currently operates in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Congo, Ghana, Rwanda, and of course Nigeria. Already, the bank is adjudged the largest bank (by customer base) in Nigeria and the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region.
The bank’s profit for the nine months grew by as much as 44.2% to N90.7 billion compared to N62.9 billion during the comparable period last.
[READ ALSO: Access Bank successfully completes post-merger integration of its banking platforms]
Access Bank Plc’s share price closed trading at N7.45 earlier today on the Nigerian Stock Exchange; some N0.5 short of the opening price of N7.50.
