HILARY JOFFE: Absa’s culture and governance its achilles heel
The institution has constantly been in the headlines in the past years, often for all the wrong reasons
The Amalgamated Banks of SA was born out of two complicated multiway mergers in 1991 and 1992. They were complicated because they involved multiple building societies and banks, at least one of which had a troubled history, and because of the cultural tensions between Afrikaans and English partners.
Then it was Afrikaners versus English bankers. Now it’s race and transformation. In some ways it feels as if the banking group we now know as Absa never really amalgamated properly. And the underlying problem is not race or language: it is something about the group’s culture and governance that in recent years has kept it constantly in the headlines, often for all the wrong reasons...
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