(Ecofin Agency) - South African banking group Standard Bank was just awarded a banking licence in Cote d’Ivoire. The licence for Standard Bank Cote d’Ivoire (Stanbic Cote d’Ivoire) was green-lit by a Ministerial Order signed by Adama Koné, Minister of Economy and Finance, in agreement with the WAEMU’s banking commission.

Standard Bank had a representative office in Cote d’Ivoire since 2014 but no subsidiary. Now, the licence remediates to that and makes Cote d’Ivoire the 20^th African nation where Standard Bank takes root.

In 2015, Africa’s leading bank said it wished to get a licence in Cote d’Ivoire which is one of the continent’s most dynamic economies and economic driver of the WAEMU. “This region has everything to profit from the coming global boom in mining and infrastructures,” one of the group’s officials said last year.

Stanbic Côte d’Ivoire currently has a social capital of FCFA12 billion which should grow to FCFA37 billion by 2020 according to French magazine Jeune Afrique.

At the moment however, nothing was revealed concerning the new orientations of Stanbic Cote d’Ivoire, or even about when it is to start its commercial banking activities.

Alain Okpeitcha (Stagiaire)