Absa Group Limited, originally Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a South African-based financial services group, offering personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management, as well as bank assurance.
ABGL is the majority shareholder of 11 banks located in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (two entities), Uganda, and Zambia. The group maintains representative offices in Namibia and Nigeria.
It also has an international office in London, which opened in September 2018. In 2019, Absa Group opened another international office in New York.
Absa was founded in 1991 through the merger of financial service providers United Bank (South Africa). The Allied Bank (South Africa), the Volkskas Bank Group, and certain interests of the Sage Group. The following year, Absa acquired the entire shareholding of the Bankorp Group which included Trustbank, Senbank, and Bankfin. In the early years of this union, each bank operated under its own name.
