Letshego Holdings Limited says it is expanding its western African footprint and further diversifying its franchise across sub-Saharan Africa.
Briefing the media recently, Letshego Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chris Low, said the group had successfully acquired AFB in Ghana, adding to Letshego’s expansion of its West Africa geographic footprint after its 100 percent acquisition of Letshego Nigeria MFB two years ago.
Low further stated that AFB was licensed by the Central Bank of Ghana as a Non-Bank Financial Institution and had a profitable business model focused on government deduction-at-source lending. He added that it operated an end-to-end automated delivery model, with strong mobile access capability.
“As a leading indigenous BSE-listed company, we intend to further enhance our product and solution offerings and expand our customer base as we seek out opportunities,” he said.
He further stated that the balance sheet of the new company was in good status adding that the business is also well capitalised. Low said the acquisition brought Letshego’s presence to 11 across sub-Saharan Africa and its customer base to over 480 000.
“AFB’s trading name will be changed to Letshego Ghana Limited and its brand to Letshego during 2017,” said Low.
He emphasised that AFB had deposit-taking capability that Letshego would look to leverage during 2017 towards enhancing its financial inclusion agenda in Ghana and in line with the Group’s ambition to be Africa’s leading inclusive finance group.
Letshego Group CEO stated that with over 600 000 government employees in Ghana and Letshego’s established strength in this sector, the opportunity for building on AFB’s platform was significant. He added Letshego would use its expertise, accumulated over the last 18 years, in providing simple, appropriate and affordable financial services to the formally employed, informal and MSE customer segments.
He is of the view that there will be opportunities to introduce commercially sustainable product offerings that support agri-business, education, health, affordable housing and general business sectors. He said AFB Ghana’s fully automated and mobile-enabled delivery platform would support the roll out of these expanded offerings.
“As a group we continue to focus on the acceleration of all four of our strategic pillars, namely embracing financial inclusion, growing the franchise, enhancing our customer experience and embedding our future capability model,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Low said in Botswana, Letshego had reapplied for the banking deposit taking license at Bank of Botswana (BoB). He added that it was a critical exercise that undergoes different stages. Low is optimistic that Bob will grant the company the license.
“We are constantly reviewing opportunities around and we are not in competition with the banks,” said Low.
