Barclays targets tourists with northerly expansion

CHAKALISA DUBE
Staff Writer | Wednesday October 10, 2012 00:00

FRANCISTOWN: In a bid to expand operations to other parts of the country, Barclays Bank will today turn its service centre in Nata village into a fully-fledged branch.The bank's head of distribution Calistus Chijoro confirmed the developments in an interview with Business Week yesterday.'Our centre in Nata offered limited services such as application of new cards and account opening. After inquiries from members of the public to have more services availed to them, we have decided to extend our operations here and turn the centre in Nata into a fully-fledged branch offering almost all services offered by the bank,' he said.

'We are just turning the status of our Nata branch into a fully-fledged branch instead of being a service centre.The number of our branches and sub-branches will still remain at 43 including the one in Nata,' he explained.BOTASH managing director Montwedi Mphathi will give a keynote address at the official opening of the bank. By extending services in Nata, the bank also targets tourists on transit to Maun, Kasane and Chobe.'We have also been overwhelmed by demand for more of our services from tourists touring the village and those on transit to other tourist destinations particularly to Kasane, Maun and Chobe. That is why we have decided to extend services at the village,' Chijoro said. The bank will also support businesses in the village and surrounding areas with its extended services.

Barclays is expected to employ nine individuals at the Nata branch, including a branch manager. Before extending its operations in Nata, the bank employed three people as personal bankers.'We have been operating the branch on a pilot basis for the last two weeks to see if we have enough logistics and technical capacity to operate the facility and everything has been going smoothly as of now,' he highlighted.With 43 branches (including sub-branches) locally, Barclays is one of the leading commercial banks in the country. First National Bank of Botswana (FNBB) has 19 branches, Standard Chartered Bank boasts of 14 branches countrywide while Stanbic has 10 branches in the country. Bank of Baroda has two branches locally as well as Capital Bank. Bank Gaborone and BancABC all boast of five branches in Botswana.

This is according to the Bank of Botswana banking supervision report of last year. Meanwhile, the opening of the new Nata branch comes a week after Barclays, the second biggest listed retail commercial bank on the local bourse, released its half-year results for the period June 30, 2012.The bank's financials highlight that total income marginally increased by 2.0 percent to P670 million. This increase was supported by 13 percent uplift in non-interest income, as the bank continues to seek out strategies to sustain its revenue sources.However, total income was depressed due to a reduction in the bank holdings; government securities, in line with the increase of the reserve ratio from 6.5 percent to 10 percent, which saw interest income for the period decreasing by 7.0 percent from P659 million to P611.7 million.  The core business of the bank expanded slightly despite the economic challenges, as its loan book to customers edged by 6.7 percent to P6.0 billion from last year's corresponding value of P5.7 billion.

Operating costs increased by 12.5 percent to P315 million from P280 million partly attributed by a pay hike (approximately 26 percent) for the bank's employees during the period under review.  As a result, cost to income increased by 8.5 percent, from 43 percent to 47 percent whereas impairment charges and other credit provisions rose by 45.8 percent to P67 million.Prospectively, the bank's outlook seems grounded in terms of its strategies to focus on corporate banking, looking at the fact that corporate profit before tax (PBT) increased significantly by 31 percent to 119.25mn, contributing 41 percent to the total PBT. The bank will receive an EMEA award for the best bank in Botswana in 2012, which is said to support its bancassurance products.The opening of the Nata branch comes a week after Assistant Minister of Finance and Development Planning Vincent Seretse urged banks to improve access to their services by other segments of the population, particularly those in rural areas. The minister was officially opening BancABC's fifth branch in the country here.