afrol News, 14 February - The Chairman of Banco International de Crédito (BIC), Fernando Teles, spilled the beans that Angolans will have access to Visa credit cards in two months time. Angola is among the few countries in Africa that are yet to introduce a credit card system, which eases banking, business and other transactions.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of BIC's first branch in Menongue in southern Angola, Mr Teles said so far, five banks had been given the green light by the Angolan government to use Visa credit card system.

The approved banks include two other Portuguese-owned banks - Banco Fometo de Angola and Banco Espírito Santo Angola.

Consequently, he said, his bank had decided to embark on training its staff on how to use the new system.

While an Egyptian company, MSC, is going to be mandated to manage the visa credit cards in Angola, a Portuguese company, SIBS, will operate ATM withdrawals.

With 52 branches in its possession, the newly opened bank becomes the 53 branch of BIC. Being the fourth biggest bank in Angola, BIC authorities are striving hard to branch out to all the 18 provinces of Angola.

In the few years since peace was established and the oil-driven economy started to boom, the Angolan banking sector is living through a renaissance.

A large number of new banks have registered in the country during the last two years, some of which have managed to take a considerable share of Angolans' steadily growing bank deposits. BIC after only one year even managed to gain the fourth place on Angola's bank ranging, in terms of deposits.

According to Pedro Barreto, Angola responsible of the consulting company Deloitte, argues that "the financial system is daring a frontier moment, producing at the same time a strong growth in the deposit basis and on the other hand an increased competition with the entry of new players that are making banks more aggressive and segmented."

Until now, banks established in Angola have been criticised for not being sufficiently oriented towards the costumer. Only last year, a plan was adopted that foresees the payment of salaries to civil servants to go via bank accounts, or a scheme to emit and accept credit cards - initially only Visa - something that now is being realised.

Still, however, Angola's financial system is only in its infancy. Barely five percent of the population has a bank account. But the number of customers and the amount of deposits are steadily increasing.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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