Monday, June 12, 2017

Another bank is going down …

On the 8th of June 2017, the Central Bank (BCC) Governor has issued a statement to inform us the people « avis au public » that Fibank was going to be liquidated…

However, the Governor wants to reassure the bank’s customers that no one deposit will be lost as another healthier bank, Afriland Firstbank, is taking over the (healthy) assets and liabilities of the falling bank. This may prevent a rush to the cashiers’ desks…

Fibank RDC SA was a subsidiary of a West Africa banking group with its head-office in Banjul, Gambia. The bank has started operating in the DRC in February 2009.

The bank was under the management of the Central Bank for the last 18 months due to poor performance (notably in terms of non performing loans) with the mission of stabilizing the institution and (hopefully) to reinforce it…

Whatever the reason for this liquidation, this clearly demonstrates another failure from the banks regulator in preventing another bank to get into trouble.

This is the second bank under BCC supervision in less than 10 years that is liquidated and now all eyes are, once again, on BIAC. Although, I think, economic operators have already factored in the potential bankruptcy of BIAC; no one really knows how another bankruptcy will impact people (low) confidence in our banking sector.

It is worth noting that Fibank was one of the smallest banks while BIAC was the fourth largest bank in the DRC.

Today, it seems that the BCC is more proactive in dealing with those issues although it may be already too late to save BIAC…


On to the next good news…  

1 comment:

Freddy Ngeleka said...

Our regulator is not working as it should. How come in less than 24 months 2 banks are falling... where is that task, the main one as a Bank Master ? The supervisor of financial institution? This is unhelpfull because it will definitely impact on banking Market penetration as Well as on the banks U&A.

Discussion sur le secteur bancaire avec Bob Nzoimbengene, Partner chez Deloitte.

Une fois n’est pas coutume, l’analyse du secteur bancaire sera faite cette fois-ci par un ancien banquier. J’ai le plaisir d’accueillir mon ...