Letshego Holdings Limited, a Gabarone-based financial inclusion focused group with consumer, micro lending and deposit-taking subsidiaries across Southern and East Africa, has acquired a 100% shareholding in FBN Microfinance Bank (FBN MFB). The acquisition is from FBN MFB’s parent, FBN Holdings plc. FBN Holdings plc is the oldest banking group in Nigeria, having been established in 1894, and is listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange. The acquisition of FBN MFB marks Letshego’s entry into West Africa, having successfully built a footprint in East and Southern Africa with 265,000 customers across nine countries.
This development brings Letshego’s footprint to ten countries, with a customer base of over 385,000; Nigeria, in particular, has been a key target market in Letshego’s diversification plans. Speaking during to the press during official announcement of the acquisition, Chris Low, group managing director of Letshego, said that FBN MFB will rebrand to Letshego MFB in due course. “As the leading indigenous BSE-company by market capitalisation and profitability, it is an exciting time for us at Letshego. “This opportunity to enter the Nigerian market coincides with the expansion of our range of financially inclusive products and services. We believe Nigeria’s growth prospects in our targeted low-and-middle income, and MSE, customer segments have significant upside potential, and that, by bringing our skills to this market, we can further financial inclusion and improve lives across Nigeria. We look forward to being able to further improve lives across the continent through this development.”
He said that with over 80,000 depositors and over 10,000 MSE borrowing customers, the bank’s operations are directly aligned to Letshego’s financial inclusion agenda.
For its part, Letshego wants to bring expertise in payroll deduction lending in the public and private sector, as well as lending to micro and small enterprises, with a focus on agriculture, education and health sectors. Letshego Holdings Limited is a Botswana International Financial Services Centre-accredited holding company with lending and deposit-taking subsidiaries across ten countries in Southern, East and West Africa.? FBN MFB was established in 2009 and is one of only six microfinance banks in Nigeria to have been awarded a national microfinance banking licence. Currently, FBN MFB has 28 branches and over 300 team members. Its core business is lending, savings and transactional financial services to micro and small enterprises (MSEs).
According to Low, the Company is ready to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria as the Group is known for offering broad based financial inclusive, innovative and competitively priced solutions that include loans between $500 and $600, appropriate to its customers’ every day needs, mainly through the dedication at source payroll model. Over the last decade and half, the Group has expanded across Africa from its origins in Botswana. At June 2015,? advances increased 16% to $580million from $501million in the previous interim, with profit before tax for the same period closing at $52million, up 8% on the prior period. Low said that Lesthego’s strategic intent is to build a leading African financial service group. He added that the Group is poised to assis governments with their financial deepening and inclusion agendas.
“The Group continues to seek deposit-taking licences to help facilitate its financial inclusion approach. This includes providing financial services access via third party agents and mobile telephony, that is underway in Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania,” he explained. On social responsibility and sustainability plans, he said, these have become integral parts of Letshego’s ?business model that seeks to address social, environmental, ethical and consumer concerns in close co-operation with all Letshego stakeholders.
