Access Bank Gets CBN, SEC’s Approval To Merge With Diamond Bank

The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission have on Tuesday given approval, in principle, to the proposed merger plans of Access Bank and Diamond Bank Plc .

The Executive Director of Access bank (Personal Banking) Mr Victor Etuokwu,  noted that the CBN and Sec have availed the banks with the need approval for the merger.

He hinted that the final approval will be gotten after the convening shareholders meeting.

“So far, we have gotten approvals up to approval in principle. There are three approvals that we need for this process.

“The first one is the pre-order approval which is like the first approval, the next approval is the approval in principle.

“The final approval comes after approval in principle and it will come after you have convened your shareholders meetings,’’ Etuokwu said.

He noted that in the next 60 days, the approval for the merger will be perfected, and the approval by the stakeholder will be taken to the court.

“We need to invest in retail market to drive economic growth, this is what the new bank will do, a strong corporate and a strong retail bank,’’ he said.

On staff retrenchment, Etuokwu said that members of staff would be retrained for different roles in case of overlapping.

“Staff will be retrained for new roles where there are overlaps, one of the branches can be converted to an e-branch or Automated Teller Machine (ATM) gallery,’’ he added.

Mr Herbert Wigwe, Access Chief Executive Officer, at a joint news conference recently said it had already finalised terms and obtained regulatory approvals for a Tier II capital issuance to raise 250 million dollars available for draw down in January 2019.

He said that the bank had also obtained “No Objection’’ from the CBN to undertake a Rights Issue to raise up to N75 billion or 207 million dollars in the first half of 2019.