Leadership crisis at African Bank

African Bank is facing another leadership shake-up following the immediate resignation of its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Anbann Chetti.

Chetti joined African Bank as group CFO and executive director in August 2023, holding the position until announcing his resignation on Friday, 11 September 2026.

Chetti said he will take a planned executive sabbatical in order to “reflect, pursue further academic development, and explore selected executive opportunities”.

In his place, African Bank has appointed Given Bhutana Mabena as acting group CFO until a permanent successor is chosen.

Chetti’s departure from the company comes just six months after African Bank’s CEO, Kennedy Bungane, abruptly stepped down from the company in March 2026.

Later reports indicated that Bungane’s resignation was the result of a regulatory reporting error, which brought African Bank under scrutiny by the Prudential Authority.

Bungane was replaced by Zwelibanzi Manyathi as interim CEO, who was then permanently appointed to the position in August 2026.

At the time of his departure, Bungane was the third CEO to resign from African Bank under the chairmanship of Thabo Dloti.

This raised concerns about African Bank’s leadership stability, which has now been further exacerbated by Chetti’s immediate resignation.

Speaking to 702, Denker Capital director and portfolio manager Kokkie Kooyman said the bank’s current leadership crisis pointed to underlying issues with the African Bank board.

African Bank has had five CEOs within the last eight years, with Kooyman speculating that Manyathi will also not hold the position for long as he nears retirement age.

“The CEO before Kennedy also left because there was a clash with Thabo Dloti, the chairman,” Kooyman said.

“There seems to be a problem there at the board level in terms of the plans and attracting the right people.”

Kooyman said African Bank should convince Manyathi to stay on as CEO for at least another year or two until stability has been restored to the bank.

While African Bank was set to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2025, it has now delayed its initial public offering until 2030.

The truth behind Chetti’s departure

While the official reason given by African Bank for Chetti’s resignation is that he is pursuing other interests, Kooyman said there is likely a deeper reason.

While he said the information was too new to know anything for certain at this stage, Kooyman said it was always a worrying sign when someone resigned with immediate effect.

According to Kooyman, Chetti’s resignation likely comes down to two reasons, the first of which relates to the bank’s rapid growth in recent years.

“In the last five years, African Bank under Kennedy and his ‘Accelerate 2025’ programme really changed the bank dramatically,” Kooyman explained.

“He did three acquisitions, two joint ventures with Shoprite and MTN, he went into Lusaka, and he really grew the client base from 1.3 million to 6.3 million. That’s quite a lot in five years.”

Kooyman said this growth was too quick for African Bank to keep pace with, causing its cost-to-income ratio to increase exponentially while its bad debts rose.

This led African Bank to fall short on capital. To resolve this, a scheme was proposed to move capital around within the group to artificially boost its capital adequacy ratio.

This was flagged by the Prudential Authority and the Financial Services Tribunal, who ordered African Bank to reverse the transactions.

While the scheme was approved at the board level, African Bank reportedly failed to obtain clearance from the bank’s largest shareholder, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

The SARB has held a 45% to 50% ownership stake in African Bank since 2014, when it rescued and restructured the bank from near collapse.

Kooyman speculated that the Reserve Bank requested the resignations of both Bungane and Chetti due to their roles in overseeing the scheme.

“The Reserve Bank was unhappy,” Kooyman said. “Kennedy had to leave, and I would almost assume that now Anbann Chetti is also leaving for the same reason.”

“They were brought in to grow the bank per board strategy, and they did that. But in banking, if you grow it fast, you run risks, especially bad debt. I think they underestimated the risk of bad debt.”