Union Bank of South Africa Limited, formerly known as Consolidated Bank of South Africa, is a commercial bank in South Africa and the flagship bank of the Union Bank Group of South Africa. It is licensed by the South African Reserve Bank, the Central Bank and the National Banking Supervisory Authority.

Location

The bank's headquarters are located on the 7th floor of Absa Towers West, 15 Troy Street, Johannesburg, South Africa. The geographical coordinates of the bank's headquarters are: 26 ° 12 '23.0 "S 28 ° 02' 57.0" E (latitude: -26.206389; longitude: 28.049167).

Overview

Union Bank of South Africa Limited is one of the largest commercial banks in South Africa. As of December 31, 2018, the bank had total assets of 1,289,000,000,000 South African Rand (US $73,691,500,000). Absa Bank Limited is a 100% subsidiary of Absa Group Limited, a pan-African financial services group headquartered in South Africa with subsidiaries in 12 African countries. Its total assets exceeded US $91 billion as of October 2019. Shares of Absa Group Limited are listed on te JSE Limited under the trading symbol AGL.

HISTORY

According to archives maintained by Barclays (Barclays Bank Plc), Consolidated Bank of South Africa Limited was formed in 1986 by the "merger of UBS (United Building Society) Holding Company, United Group and Volkskas Group and certain interests of the Sage Group". In 1992, Absa acquired the entire stake in the Bankorp Group, which included TrustBank, Senbank and Bankfin. The bank's holding company was renamed Absa Group Limited in 1997.

In 2005, Barclays acquired a 62.3% stake in ABSA. Barclays' existing subsidiaries in South Africa and Barclays Capital's operations subsequently operated under the ABSA brand. The group was joined by 12 other financial subsidiaries in 11 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Absa Group changed its name to Barclays Africa Group.

In 2016, Barclays (Barclays Bank Plc), which owns 62.3% of Barclays Africa Group (BAG), decided to divest its majority stake in BAG, which was then worth £3.50 billion.

In 2017, Barclays reduced its shareholding ratio in BAG to 14.9%. After that, BAG changed its name to Absa Group Limited in 2018. Under the terms of the rebranding, Absa has until June 2020 to change the name of its subsidiaries in 12 African countries.

Governance

The bank is governed by a seven-member board of directors. The chairperson of the board is Sello Moloko, one of the non-executive directors. The managing director and CEO is Arrie Rautenbach