ETI moves a step further

Story: Boahene Asamoah

ECOBANK Transnational Incorporated (ETI), the pan African bank, has signed a joint venture agreement with Computershare Limited, a global leader in share registration and custody, to offer investor services across the African continent.
The agreement would provide shareholder registry and custody services for clients in Africa, excluding South Africa, through Ecobank’s e-Process Centre in Accra.
The agreement will initially offer registry services to the three markets where Ecobank has been listed.
At a signing ceremony in Accra on Wednesday, the Group Chief Executive of the Bank, Mr Arnold Ekpe, in a satellite link from his base in Lome, welcomed the partnership between the bank and Computershare.
He said the joint venture was important because “it brings together Ecobank’s platform and local knowledge of areas where we operate and the expertise of Computershare in registry across the world”.
“The joint venture further demonstrates the commitment of Ecobank to leveraging strategic global alliances to provide convenient, accessible and reliable services for our customers who will derive immense value from the registry and custodial services of the joint venture company”.
The Chief Executive Officer of Computershare’s South African Office, Mr Stand Lorge, said the company was delighted to have found a partner like Ecobank with whom it could realise its African strategy.
He added that the Ecobank offered unrivalled market access across Africa, while Computershare added technology, product knowledge and expertise that had developed across the world over the past 30 years.
An Executive Director of the ETI in charge of Operations, Technology, Transation Banking and Retail Bank, Mr Patrick Akinwuntan, said “the setting up of the joint venture company to deliver cross-border registry and a custody and settlement system, will leverage the bank’s knowledge and experience of the African market, as well as our unique technology and shared services platform”.
Mr Akinwutan initialled on behalf of the bank while Mr Lorge signed on behalf of Computershare to seal the agreement.
e-Process is the technology and central processing arm of the Ecobank group, providing the technology and telecommunications platform for operations across the group’s network of 22 countries in Africa.
Computershare is a global leader in share registration, employee equity plans, proxy solicitation and other specialised financial, governance and communication services.
Computershare is listed on the Austrialian Stock Market and has a market capitalisation of about $4.8 billion.
The company recently was involved in the world’s largest Initial Public Offer of about $19 billion through its shares registry services to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
The Ecobank Group currently operates in 22 African countries and it is Africa’s biggest bank in terms of coverage with its over 450 branches.