Initiated by the success of Amhara Bank, the market organizers of the bank have signaled to establish Amara insurance as Capital has learnt.
According to Melaku Fenta, Chairperson of the Organizing Committee of the Bank, the organizers of the bank are working to come up with Amhara Insurance.
“The organizers are working to fulfill the requirements of the National bank and required licenses of which is soon to be guaranteed,” Melaku stated.
After setting the record for an initial paid up capital for a new entrant bank in the Ethiopian banking industry Amhara Bank has stopped selling its shares after a year of subscription period.
The bank said it has subscribed capital of 8.1 billion birr and of these 6 billion birr were paid in full.
The bank said it had sold 1.7 billion birr worth of shares within one month period between October 29 and November 29 alone.
“This indicates that there is still a demand for shares, but the sale ended on November 29,”said Melaku on a press conference.
Apart from the record it registered in terms of the paid-up capital, the bank has a large number of shareholders. The bank says it has 185,000 shareholders, while this number of shareholders is challenging to hold the founding general assembly at one place.
Hence, the Bank is resorting to delegation attendance in which multiple shareholders can delegate their respective representatives to attend and vote on their behalf.
He said everyone could not attend the first general assembly of all shareholders due to the current situation of corona virus in Ethiopia.
According to the bank organizers, so far 75,000 shareholders have given power of attorney to be represented for the general assembly, while it is not enough to fill the quorum.
Melaku also said that to get ample delegation the power of attorney process has been extended until December 24, 2020 and called the shareholders to visit relevant documents registration offices to finalize the process.
According to Melaku, the financial institution has not been able to meet the quorum in accordance with the commercial law and the proclamation of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), a supervisory body of financial institutions.
Currently, there are 19 banks in Ethiopia including two public banks. According to the information obtained from NBE about 20 new banks both conventional and interest free are on the way to join the market.
