• Absa Bank is set to open a new office for its corporate and investment banking division in Dubai, UAE.
• This comes as trade and investments boom between the Middle East and Africa.
• Absa recently announced a new CEO in Kenny Fihla, best known for boosting Standard Bank’s CIB earnings into the twenty billions.

South Africa’s third-largest bank, Absa, is planning to open new office spaces for corporate and investment banking (CIB) division in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

The move is pending regulatory approval but is aimed at increasing its investments in the Middle East and North Africa region and responding to competitors like Investec, Standard Bank and others that have already opened divisions in the region.

According to Absa’s CIB CEO, Yasmin Masithela, the move will allow the bank to be closer to its client base in the region.

“You want to be closest to the clients that are driving the businesses that are aligned to your strategy, and infrastructure development has always been one of our strategic objectives,” she explained, per TechCabal.

Absa already has offices in the US, the UK, and recently China as well. The move also reflects growing trade and financial deals between Sub-Saharan African nations and Middle-Eastern countries.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the sum of imports and exports between the UAE and countries in Sub-Saharan African countries increased by 30 percent, while trade between Saudi Arabia and the region is now 12 times the value it was a decade ago.

Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia were added to the BRICS business alliance during the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Absa says that it expects its investment banking growth to be in the “middle single-digit level” according to the division’s CEO, while units like corporate business banking could show growth above 10 percent.

Last month, Absa announced a new CEO and executive director for Absa Group and Absa Bank in Kenny Fihla. Fihla apparently landed the gig after “an extensive selection process.” He is the current deputy chief executive officer of rival Standard Bank.

Interestingly, Fihla was known during his seven year tenure in Standard Bank for doubling the bank’s CIB division earnings to R20.5 billion.

[Image – Photo by Mitchell Nyathi on Unsplash]