First National Bank (FNB; Afrikaans: Eerste Nasionale Bank (ENB)) is one of the "Big Four" banks in South Africa. It is a division of the large financial services group FirstRand and is traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) under the symbol: FSR. FNB is also listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange under the symbol FNBB and is a constituent of the BSE Domestic Companies Index.

Overview

FNB is one of the three main divisions of the FirstRand Group, the others being Rand Merchant Bank and Wesbank. First National Bank maintains its wholly or partly owned banking subsidiaries in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, India, Lesotho and Guernsey. FNB is also actively pursuing expansion plans in Angola and Nigeria. May 2012 media reports indicate that the bank is also planning to expand its operations to Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

History

FNB is the oldest bank in South Africa. Its origins can be traced back to the Eastern Triangle Provincial Bank established in Graham Township in 1838. At that time, the bank financed the region's wool export boom. By 1874, the bank had four branches in Graham Township, Middleburg, Craddock and Queenstown. Due to the economic downturn, the bank was acquired by the Oriental Banking Company (OBC) in 1874. However, due to the financial difficulties encountered by the Oriental Bank Company in India, it decided to withdraw from South Africa, so the African Bank was established in 1879 to take over OBC's operations in South Africa.

Around the same time, due to the discovery of gold in Barberton and the Witwatersrand, the Government of the Republic of South Africa wanted to establish a local commercial bank. Therefore, the Government created a bank through a concession agreement. The bank was tasked with concentrating mainly on financing agricultural development. As part of the concession, a national mint was also established. The National Bank of the Republic of South Africa Limited (Nationale Bank der Zuid - Afrikaansche Republiek Beperk) was registered in Pretoria in 1891 and opened its doors on April 5 of the same year. After the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902, the bank was renamed the National Bank of South Africa Limited.

Due to another economic downturn, the Bank of Africa was acquired by the National Bank in 1912, which had already acquired another bank in 1910, the National Bank of Orange Colony. The Natal Bank, established in 1854 to finance the sugar industry in the Natal Colony, also suffered financial difficulties and was taken over in 1914. By this time, the National Bank was now one of the strongest and largest banks in South Africa.

However, by the early 1920s, the National Bank had suffered bad debts and significant losses. As a result, it merged with Anglo-Egyptian Bank and Colonial Bank in 1925 to form Barclays (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas). In 1971, Barclays restructured its operations and its South African operations were renamed Barclays National Bank Limited.

As South Africa's apartheid policy sparked a divestment campaign against South Africa, Barclays was forced to reduce its stake and sold its stake in the bank in 1986. The bank was renamed "First National Bank of South Africa Limited" on September 30, 1987, becoming a wholly owned South African bank owned and controlled by Anglo-American.

In 1998, Rand Merchant Bank Holdings and the financial services interests of Anglo-American Corporation (including its stake in First National Bank) merged to form FirstRand, which is listed on the JSE Stock Exchange. As a result, FNB became a wholly owned subsidiary of FirstRand Limited; it currently trades as a division of FirstRand Bank Limited.

In 1999, First National Bank was mentioned in the "Ciex Report", which summarized a two-year investigation into the theft of 26 billion rand from the state during the apartheid era. Investigators allege that FNB illegally received hundreds of millions of rand from SARB. The money was disguised as a "lifeboat" to make up for non-performing loans. As in 2017, the stolen funds have not been recovered

FirstRand Group

FirstRand Group was formed in 1998 by the merger of First National Bank of South Africa, Rand Commercial Bank and Momentum Insurance & Asset Management. FirstRand is classified as a "locally controlled bank" by the national banking regulator, the South African Reserve Bank. The group had total assets valued at $9.03 + billion (ZAR: 698 billion) (2011) as of May 2012 and has subsidiaries in seven sub-Saharan countries as well as Australia and India. Expansion plans are underway in six additional African countries.

Controversial

Safe box victims

In September 2015, The Sunday Times reported that the FNB said a "small number" of safes had been stolen from its Sunnyside branch in Pretoria.

Later that same year, 360 boxes were stolen during a daring nighttime break-in at the Landburg branch in Johannesburg.

On New Year's Eve, the third and final break-in took place at the FNB Parktown branch. At the time, it was reported that the value of 30 deposit boxes at the branch was around Rand 1.70 million.

In 2018, it was reported that 60 victims were filing claims with First National Bank (South Africa) for a reported amount of 121 million rand