South Africa’s central bank governor has criticised the 2005 takeover by Barclays of South African retail bank Absa, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni called the British bank’s stewardship of Absa ”discouraging”, the newspaper said.
Mboweni was quoted as telling the FT that, while Barclays was repatriating dividends from South Africa to Britain, he had yet to see the benefits of its management of Absa with the successful roll-out of new products and systems.
He also noted that the cultures of Barclays, Britain’s third-biggest bank, and Absa, South Africa’s biggest retail bank, had yet to slot together, according to the FT.
Mboweni said that even the timing of meetings had caused difficulties, because Afrikaans-speaking executives were accustomed to starting their working day earlier.
”Barclays doesn’t manage Absa,” the central banker said.
The newspaper quoted Barclays as expressing surprise at Mboweni’s remarks: ”Absa has seen customer numbers and staff morale increase and we believe it has delivered a great deal of value to all its stakeholders.”
Barclays agreed a $5,5-billion deal for the control of Absa in 2005, marking its return to South African retail banking and the biggest foreign direct investment in the country. – Reuters