Bank Round-up
- Co-op Bank extends its banking hours from the now less-traditional 9 to 3 to 9 a.m. to 4. p.m. daily and up to noon on Saturdays.
- bold Equity Bank announced plans last week to open new branches in Kisumu, but that was before a new outbreak of violence over the weekend and the fatal shooting of an opposition MP this morning.
- The Business Daily reports that West African giant Ecobank, plans to take over a majority stake in limping mortgage bank EABS whose recent growth had lagged most of its peers
- NIC Bank to convert this cashless ATM points into full branches and expand its network.
capital flight: A leading multi-national bank is considering moving an African operations department out of Nairobi, and to another country. The amount of capital flight (money leaving the country) is also at an alarming high.
Other sectors
- Valentine’s day massacre?; What does Naivasha flare up mean for some flower farms who Valentine's Day (Feb 14) shipment/sales can account for up to ½ their turnover in a year ?
- Nairumor that a blue chip CEO and turnaround specialist will resign next month in search of (foreign) greener pastures
- The Harvard Business School’s Africa Business Conference is on February 15-17, 2008 in Boston MA. Details from YAP
- Some troubling signs and even more today.
- Another regional airline upstart is Executive Turbine, flying 4X weekly to Kisumu for Kshs. 3,540 ($70). Regional airlines should be added to the earlier post on election winners.
Trivia
- Will ‘President Obama’ need Equity Bank? - because 46% of African American household’s don’t have bank accounts - he can tap Equity Bank’s revolutionary model to bring banking to the unbanked.
- wish I was in France: It’s better to be a rogue trader facing charges for misplacing $7 billion. But it’s also a reminder that financial shenanigans are still rarely punished and prosecuted in Kenya. E.g. Francis Thuo. (and maybe Mr. Kerviel would rather have worked for a Kenyan bank instead)
