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The fast paced registration process of Access Bank
SC was put on hold last Thursday, falling into a
seemingly unexpected bureaucratic trap. Yirga
Tadesse, public notary office general manager,
decided to collect documents of Memorandum of
Association that were signed by the Bank’s 2,500
shareholders in six weeks after it found they were
not given the go-ahead from the supervisory body,
the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE).
Discovering that they have not fulfilled the
requirements of NBE, Yirga suspended the signings
begun at the founding meeting on August 25, 2007.
The boxed documents are locked inside the General
Manager’s office. Even if NBE gives the bank a green
light afterwards, the shareholders have to resign
the Memorandum of Association documents, as the ones
that they have signed is already void, sources told
Fortune.
Procedures dictate that when new banks enter the
sector they must first meet the requirements set by
NBE prior to signing the memorandum of association
before the public notary office.
NBE has sole authority to grant licenses to banks
who manage to raise the 75 million Br capital
threshold. It is after such procedures are fulfilled
that the shareholders of the bank sign the
memorandum of association at the public notary
office.
However, without finalising the prerequisites of NBE,
the shareholders went on to directly sign the
memorandum, though it was culminated when only 200
people were left to finalise it.
“Our Bank, unlike other banks that only have 20 or
30 shareholders, is established with 2,700
shareholders,” Ermyas Amelga, president of Access
Bank, told Fortune. “It is because it takes a
longer time for the shareholders to sign the
Memorandum that we began it earlier.”
However, Ermyas disclosed that NBE has given them
the go-ahead after they verbally communicated the
rationale behind the early start.
Begun, in April 2007 by the main promoter, Ermyas,
Access envisions serving its customers with new
services and make exceptional returns focusing on
adding value.
However, things do not seem easy for the latest
entrant, which has planned to make its headquarters
the Abebech Metaferia Building, erected on a 436sqm
plot where the Old Milk House Villa rested in
Kazanchis.
An official at the public notary office told
Fortune that further investigations would be
made as to how the Bank was not stopped in all these
weeks.
Following the financial liberalisation of the
mid-1990s, Ethiopia’s banking system is portrayed as
one of the sources of economic strength. A glance at
the colourful bank annual reports, the endless
gloomy analysis of non-performing loans (NPL) have
given way to a roaring growth and skyrocketing
profits. Access Bank, therefore, hopes to take its
share of profits in this expanding sector.
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