Near monopoly in banking sector worries BoB

According to the Banking Supervision Annual Report 2009 released by the Bank of Botswana last week, the four largest banks, Stanchart, Barclays, FNBB and Stanbic, accounted for 90 percent of total assets, total deposits and total loans in 2009.

BoB says although not monopolistic in nature, the dominance by the four banks is still an unhealthy scenario in a sector that is supposed to be characterised by lower concentration in order for banks to price competitively, thus reducing the degree of market power and collusion among players.