Nigeria: Access Holdings gets France operating license

The group managing director, Access Holdings Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe has disclosed that the group obtained approval license to commence operation in France last week.

Wigwe who stated this at a Statutory Meeting of the shareholders of Access Holdings in Lagos also noted that the holding company in its bid to become Africa’s gateway to the world is set to launch a new company called Hydrogen.

What Hydrogen will do: He noted that with the launch of the subsidiary, Access Holdings would be supporting intra-Africa trade, adding that in partnership with some DFIs, Hydrogen would be responsible for payment across the continent.

• “We share the fact with you that we wanted to be known as Africa’s gateway to the world and what that meant was that we are going to be responsible for payments across the entire continent, irrespective of where you are and where you’re transferring money from. We are going to support intra-African trade, which is a big problem today.”
• “The bank cannot do this alone because these are very specialist skills and it will allow us to be able to ensure that there are settlements even in countries where we don’t have a physical presence. The idea is that wherever you are in the world, if you’re making a transfer to anybody across the continent, one out of every three transactions that come into the continent will be settled on Access Bank’s platform,” Wigwe said.

He, however, assured shareholders that though the business would generate commissions and fees, it would not lead to significant credit risk.

• “They do have operational risk, obviously, but we do have strong compliance process and technology platform, which we will enhance to ensure that operational risks will be significantly mitigated,” he noted.

Other subsidiaries: Speaking further, the GMD said plans are underway for the establishment of more subsidiaries, among which are insurance brokerage lending platforms targeted at youths, among others.

He assured the shareholders that the corporation would increase its earnings base as it continues to spread its tentacles across the continent.

• “We will continue to spread across Europe to make sure that at the end of the day, perhaps ten years from now, we would have created a very strong diversified entity, not just relying on Nigeria or Africa but also having a broad diversified income base with good quality earnings coming from countries where the inflation rates are less than that of the country, thereby making us much stronger franchise than any other financial institution in the continent,”Wigwe said.

Statutory report: Meanwhile, shareholders at the meeting unanimously adopted the statutory report of the Holdings in compliance with the provisions of Section 235 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).

According to the resolution passed at the bank’s Ordered General Meeting held on December 16, 2021, during which the Scheme of Arrangement was approved by the bank’s shareholders, Access Corporation has divided its shares into 35,545,225,622 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each.