The governor of South Africa’s central bank has publicly criticized Barclays Bank over its takeover of local retail bank Absa.
Tito Mboweni leveled the criticism of the British bank’s stewardship of Absa in a newspaper interview in which he described the leadership from Barclays as “discouraging” and told the Financial Times that “Barclays doesn’t manage Absa.”
In particular, Mboweni identified a lack of communication between the two parties since Barclays acquired a controlling share in Absa in July 2005 and said that the takeover had not seen the promised rollout of services and products that would garner new custom.
“Absa has seen customer numbers and staff morale increase and we believe it has delivered a great deal of value to all its stakeholders,” Barclays told the newspaper in response to Mboweni’s remarks.
Barclays paid close to $1.5 billion for a 56 percent stake in Absa in a move that is intended to increase the proportion of its earnings from overseas markets.