The trending news in the banking industry as at this moment is that Access Bank has acquires Diamond Bank after long speculations.
According to the cable, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will soon make the official announcement and next action to take over the bank fully will be announced by the Access Bank’s Management.
It could be recalled that Diamond Bank had earlier announced that the bank has decided to drop its International Operating Licence in order to deal earnestly with the local or national banking due to capitalisation issues.
According to TheCable, Access Bank legally acquires Diamond Bank through the Nigeria’s apex bank, CBN in order to make Nigeria’s banking industry stronger like their counterparts in the world.
The acquisition was confirmed by Diamond Bank’s CEO, Uzoma Dozie in a statement released three days ago (precisely on Friday). He was quoted that with this approval, Diamond Bank will stop operating as international bank.
He added that the re-licensing as a national bank supports Diamond Bank’s objective to provide a banking system that operates only in Nigerian retail banking market, some other available opportunities and the nation’s economy.
Uzoma further said that the move is in accordance with Diamond Bank’s decision to sell out its international operations which contained the selling out of its West Africa subsidiaries in the year 2017 and also the UK branch which is in the final stage to be sold out as well.
He further explained that the relegation to local or national bank is beneficial to the bank in such a way that they can now live on 10% capital requirement instead of 15% required for international banks.
Before Access Bank acquired Diamond bank, the bank (diamond) recorded share plunging to 0.61k per unit on November, 2018 which is the worst to be recorded.
Same thing happened to Skype bank before it was also acquired by Polaris. Some banks are just hustling, struggling and enduring among the competitors just like other banks but, only the powerful ones will remain.
What do you think about this? Is it okay for Access bank to acquire Diamond Bank? Kindly share your opinion using the comment box below.
