Access Bank may be good or bad news
By Victor Angula|
The recent arrival of a new kid on the block in the commercial banking sector – Access Bank Namibia – may be good news – or bad news – depending on which side of the fence you are looking at it from.
In a small country, in terms of the population, which is a small market, as it is commonly referred to by some, another commercial bank entering the market may mean several things.
One of them may be that although Namibia has a small population, just a little over 3 million people, it is still a lucrative market for those doing business in the banking sector. It is a well-known fact that the four top commercial banks keep making huge profits every year from the Namibian market.
This is therefore good news. It is good news for all kinds of entrepreneurs in any sector. It shows that the economy of Namibia is not bad by nature. It is not bad due to natural factors such as the size of the population.
If commercial banks are able to make money out of this market, then it means that the problem is not the market.
The entrance of Access Bank may also be seen as good news from the public’s point of view, especially the consumers’ perspective in that another bank may create more competition in the banking sector.
And competition may bring about better prices for the services provided by banks.
But it may also be seen in the light of bad news in that Access Bank, a commercial bank whose head office is in Nigeria, may become another pipeline to channel Namibia’s money outside of the country.
There is no doubt that the profits of this bank will go out of the country. And this is not a good thing at all.
– Victor Angula is the editor of Omutumwa News Online. He can be reached at victorangula@yahoo.com
