Rennies settles on establishing banking arm.(Rennies Bank, South Africa;)(includes correction to article in January issue about)(Amiram Sivan, of Israel's Bank Hapoalim)(Brief Article)

Banker, The, February, 2001

A new bank aims to join the ranks of South Africa's big five. Rennies, a travel and foreign exchange company, has set up Rennies Bank, based on its strength in the South African travellers' cheques market, the world's fifth largest at $1bn. Rennies, a subsidiary of services group Bidvest, says its goal is to achieve pre-tax profit of R75m in its first full year of operation. The bank will concentrate on cards, travellers' cheques and electronic banking, as well as taking deposits.

Meanwhile, a Merrill Lynch survey showed South African asset managers were strong buyers of financial stocks in January, with 27% pinpointing banks as their favourite stock investment. On the economic front, 83% of the fund managers said they believed the country will escape the...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.