UBA opens new branch in Mali

United Bank for Africa (UBA) will open a new branch in Mali on February 4, expanding in a region where it already operates in a dozen countries.

“Mali is a large market with a low (bank) account penetration rate,” Maimouna El Oumarany, spokeswoman for UBA’s Malian subsidiary, said by telephone. “We’re hoping to do better than the 13 banks already established in the country.”

El Oumarany said UBA’s strategy in Mali, a landlocked country on the edge of the Sahara, was focused on digital products that clients could access from their smartphones.

UBA, one of Nigeria’s largest banks with more 700 branches, has subsidiaries across Africa in countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast in the west, Kenya and Uganda in the east and Mozambique and Zambia in the south.

It also has offices in London, Paris and New York.

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UBA was incorporated in Nigeria as a limited liability company after taking over the assets of the British and French Bank Limited who had been operating in Nigeria since 1949.

The United Bank for Africa merged with Standard Trust Bank in 2005 and from a single country operation founded in 1949 in Nigeria – Africa’s largest economy – UBA has become one of the leading providers of banking and other financial services on the African continent.

The Bank provides services to over15 million customers globally, through one of the most diverse service channels in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 1,000 branches, customer touch points and robust online and mobile banking platforms.