{"id":10466,"date":"2012-05-03T20:32:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/s-africas-firstrand-plans-kenya-bank-acquisition\/"},"modified":"2012-05-03T20:32:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:32:29","slug":"s-africas-firstrand-plans-kenya-bank-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africas-firstrand-plans-kenya-bank-acquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa&#8217;s FirstRand plans Kenya bank acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Says targeting a mid-tier Kenyan bank<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* To increase branches in Tanzania<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Duncan Miriri<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>NAIROBI, May 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s FirstRand Bank<br \/>\n plans to acquire a mid-sized Kenyan bank when the<br \/>\nopportunity arises to boost its presence in the largest economy<br \/>\nin one of the fastest-growing regions on the continent, its<br \/>\nAfrica head said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Foreign lenders have been looking to set up operations in<br \/>\nKenya, driven by a desire for a piece of the action in a market<br \/>\nwhere collective industry profits jumped 20.4 percent last year<br \/>\nto 89.3 billion shillings ($1.07 billion).<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Jabu Khethe, chief executive for FirstRand Africa, said the<br \/>\nsector was very competitive, with 43 lenders, making it<br \/>\ndifficult for a new entrant to adopt a greenfield model.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A law requiring banks to raise their minimum capital to 1<br \/>\nbillion shillings from 250 million shillings by the end of this<br \/>\nyear, would also throw up consolidation and acquisition<br \/>\nopportunities, Khethe said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We tend to come in the mid-tier type level. It is easy to<br \/>\nmerge the cultures, people, systems, etc,&#8221; Khethe said at the<br \/>\nlaunch of the bank&#8217;s representative office in Nairobi late on<br \/>\nWednesday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;More importantly you still have some work to do in<br \/>\ncapturing the market share. To buy a bank that is dominant<br \/>\nalready is not always the best solution.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Says targeting a mid-tier Kenyan bank * To increase branches in Tanzania By Duncan Miriri NAIROBI, May 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s FirstRand Bank plans to acquire a mid-sized Kenyan bank when the opportunity arises to boost its presence in the largest economy in one of the fastest-growing regions on the continent, its Africa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}