South African bank slapped with a major fine

The Prudential Authority has imposed an administrative penalty of R2.91 million on Access Bank South Africa for failing to submit its annual financial statements.

The financial watchdog said Access Bank South Africa failed to submit, within the prescribed period, its audited financial statements and the regulatory audit reports for its financial year ended 31 December 2023.

Access Bank has over 60 million customers across three continents, operating in 24 countries worldwide, including 16 in Africa.

The company aspires to be among Africa’s top five banks by 2030. It entered South Africa as part of its global expansion strategy.

Founded in 1947 as The South African Bank of Athens, the company now known as Access Bank South Africa initially served the Greek expat community as a business bank focused on small enterprises.

In 2018, Bank of Athens concluded a deal with AFGRI, Fairfax Capital and South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation to acquire the majority of the bank’s shares. 

This saw the bank realign its strategy to focus on South Africa’s food and agribusiness markets, from farming to food retail. 

Therefore, the bank rebranded and relaunched as Grobank, building on its business banking expertise and developing secondary agri-market skills and capabilities.

In 2020, Grobank entered into a transaction with the Access Bank Group. Access Bank invested and acquired a controlling stake in Grobank and, in 2021, rebranded it as Access Bank South Africa.

Founded in 1988, Access Bank has evolved from an obscure Nigerian Bank to an African banking giant.

It is one of the five largest banks in Nigeria in terms of assets, loans, deposits and branch network.

The company recently sealed a deal to acquire South Africa’s Bidvest Bank for R2.3 billion, further securing its foothold in the country.