The former chief economist and vice governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), Bekalu Zeleke, began working as president of the Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) a day after the Ethiopian Christmas holyday. In addition three new vice presidents (VPs) were also assigned by the board of directors which is being chaired by Meseret Taye.
A few months ago, the former president, Mulugeta Asmare resigned from his position. When he did so,
Sources said that as per the time frame that Mulugeta gave, the new president officially started his work as of January 8.
The board approved the position of two new VPs about two weeks ago and another one became acting VP during a special meeting of the board of directors held on Thursday.
The three VPs that assigned by the board are Meseret Assfaw, chief enterprise officer, and Daniel Hailu, chief information officer, Asaminew Deribew, who was assigned last Thursday will manage the chief customer service, according to sources.
Currently the bank has five VPs and two executives under its structure.
Under his leadership in the past five years Mulugeta has registered magnificent performance at the bank. Previously they experienced trouble with non-performing loans. Bekalu, who also registered several achievements under his leadership at Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the state financial giant, has been assigned as chief economist and vice governor of the central bank by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), but he left after a couple of months service.
When he was president of CBE he registered massive deposit mobilization and expanded the bank’s branches by close to four fold. The total number of CBE’s branches has now reached about 1,300 from 220 as of June 30, 2010.
Bekalu has been president of CBE for close to a decade by replacing Abe Sano, who is now president of Oromia International Bank.
BoA is one of the two oldest private banks and in the past decade it has made several remarkable achievements.
In the past fiscal year the bank that has 2.56 billion birr paid up capital has registered assets of 31.9 billion birr for the year, which was 25.8 billion birr a year ago, while their capital has reached 4.3 billion birr which is a 27 percent increase. The paid up capital, assets and others statements put the bank one of the top three on the private banking industry.
The number of depositors at the bank has dramatically increased. In the 2016 /2017 fiscal year the number of depositors stood at 750,000, while it has now increased by 35 percent and reached more than one million.
Besides the growth in the number of customers the bank’s deposit mobilization went up by five billion birr within a single year.
The report indicated that the total deposit mobilization at the end of June 30, 2018 reached 26 billion birr, which was about 21 billion birr a year ago. The growth of deposit mobilization has placed the bank as one of the most competitive banks and a key player in the sector.
In terms of advances and loans BoA has facilitated close to 4 billion birr during the fiscal year amounting to a total of 18 billion birr.
Loans and advances grew by 28 percent compared with the preceding year. Term loans and over drafts grew by 35 percent. According to BoA’s financial report, the proportion of loans indicated that term loans took the lion’s share by 66 percent and over drafts and advances stood at 21.3 and 12 percent respectively. From the total loans domestic trade took the highest portion followed by exports, construction and industry.