BARCLAYS AFRICA RE-BRANDING NEXT MAJOR HEADACHE

Barclays Africa Group Limited (BAGL) Deputy CEO, Peter Matlare

RENAMING and re-branding of Barclays Africa Group Limited (BAGL) without harming its interest in Africa is the next major headache as separation from the UK based Barclays PLC makes good progress.

The bank's Deputy CEO, Peter Matlare, said in Johannesburg, South Africa last week that renaming and rebranding of the bank would be a painstaking process to make sure its operations in several African countries were not to be negatively affected.

"We want to ensure nothing goes wrong...," he told a group of journalists from African countries who toured BAGL headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa last week.

Barclays Africa Group whose operations in Tanzania includes those under Barclays Bank Tanzania and NBC Bank with combined 69 branches and 484,446 customers, is also the largest shareholders of Barclays branded banks in Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Mauritius and Seychelles.

The bank which is one of South Africa’s ‘big four’ along with Standard Bank, Nedbank and FirstRand is separating from the UKbased Barclays PLC to become a leading stand-alone pan-African financial institution.

It announced early this year to have agreed separation terms with the Barclays PLC under which it will receive contributions totalling £765 million from the UK-based lender primarily to fund investments after separation.

It will also continue using the Barclays brand at its operations outside of South Africa for three years and will receive certain services from Barclays PLC on arms’ length basis for a transitional period, typically up to three years.

"We are looking forward to a smooth separation process without causing any risks to our markets," said the Deputy CEO who is responsible for the rest of Africa businesses of the bank.

He said they were currently undertaking extensive research into its brand future, incorporating views from across the continent and from top brand advisors. A dedicated has had more than 130,000 conversation with employees, customers, clients and other stakeholders in all of the markets in which the bank operates, he said.

The bank is making good progress in separating its operations after the UK based PLC company reduced its majority shareholding to focus on UK and US markets. "It is early in process but we are satisfied with the way the separation work is progressing," said BAGL CEO, Maria Ramos in a statement.

"It will take a couple of years as this is a large project which we are undertaking gradually and orderly," she said. The separation comprises mainly internal work and customer and client services will be largely unaffected by the project.

Regulators are overseeing the process to ensure that it proceeds smoothly. The separation is exciting for us because it presents a number of opportunities... Our destiny is now on our hands and we are excited about the work we are undertaking to shape a futurefit business," she said.

Barclays Africa Group operations in Tanzania includes those under Barclays Bank Tanzania and NBC Bank with combined 69 branches and 484,446 customers.

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