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here through the 335-branch Banque Marocaine pour le Com-
merce et l’Industrie (BMCI), in which BNP Paribas Group has a
majority stake. It also collects the most responses, and its scores
are conspicuously higher than those of its rivals, beating both
the overall market and global averages. BNP Paribas is clearly
betting that this market will grow in terms of both value and vol-
ume and is working with the Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE)
to help make that happen. build a CSD of their own. By working together, the NSX and the
central bank reason that bond and money market instruments
can be settled alongside equities in a single depository. Settling
securities transactions locally is part of a wider strategy to grow
the Namibian capital market. Inevitably for a stock market based
largely on mining, prices on the NSX have followed a volatile
pattern in the last two years, but patient investors will have
made money here since 2016.
Attijariwafa Bank
Attijariwafa is the indigenous incumbent in Casablanca. The
scores it receives from a small number of clients are insufficient
to assess the quality of the service, but its category averages do
not rise above the ordinary. Attijariwafa also faces a domestic
rival, in the shape of Mediafinance, the BCP Group-owned secu-
rities services specialist in which Attijariwafa once held a stake. RMB Custody
RMB, the South African investment and corporate bank, has a
direct presence in this market, chiefly to facilitate its work with
the mining companies active in the mineral-based Namibian
economy. But its Custody and Trustee Services division supports
investors active in Windhoek mainly through Johannesburg.
Responses are too few to provide a rating.
Société Générale Securities Services
Société Générale Marocaine de Banques has a 400-branch retail
network here, so the French bank is certainly well-entrenched
in Morocco. It services a number of foreign banks in Casablan-
ca but not enough of them have responded to be sure what the
average client thinks. The scores suggest the basic services of
account opening, settlement and safekeeping are performed well
but there is definitely room for improvement in asset servicing,
cash management, foreign exchange execution and communica-
tion with clients. Standard Bank
While Standard Bank has an established presence here, it has
attracted no responses for its Namibian operation this year.
Citi
Citi extended its direct clearing and custody network to Mo-
rocco in 2007, at the behest of network managers whose clients
were keen to exploit investment opportunities in Casablanca.
A dozen years on, the responses the bank has received point to
strengths in basic client service, settling transactions, technol-
ogy, and insulating clients from regulatory and other risks. But
Citi is also seen as relatively expensive and less adept than its
competitors at maintaining relationships. “I have not seen any
updates, visit or contacts made by Citibank,” writes a client. “Is
this market not strategic for Citibank? I would appreciate some
activities at all.”
NAMIBIA
The regulatory obligation laid on Namibian pension funds and
insurance companies to hold 35% of their portfolio in local
assets inevitably tilts the attention of local custodians away from
inbound business, but this is still an open market for foreign
investors. The problem is that the NSX is not large – it lists 40
companies plus a quartet of precious metal-based ETFs, acces-
sible through a handful of local stock brokers – and almost all
the stocks can also be traded and settled in Johannesburg. This
reflects the fact that the Namibian economy remains close-
ly intertwined with that of South Africa not just through the
mining multinationals that invest here. It is also a member of
a customs union with its neighbour and the Namibian dollar is
linked to the South African rand. At present, securities trans-
actions settle in STRATE, the South African central securities
depository (CSD). However, in 2016 the Bank of Namibia and
the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) announced they would
NIGERIA
This has been a difficult year, with the Nigerian Stock Exchange
(NSE) All-Share declining continuously, limiting IPOs and
squeezing turnover. Foreign investors account for half of the
activity on the NSE and selling by foreign investors was up by
half last year. Despite efforts to diversify the economy, almost
every aspect of economic life in Nigeria is still driven by the oil
price, whose fluctuations have unhelpful knock-on effects on the
exchange rate too. But the NSE has retained its mojo. In Febru-
ary this year it launched a trading platform for mutual funds to
encourage more local funds to list.
Standard Chartered Bank
The bank re-entered the market as a retail provider 20 years ago,
and now has 35 branches in Nigeria, and a burgeoning corpo-
rate banking business. Standard Chartered banishes memories
of a less-than-stellar performance in Lagos last year. This year
the bank got easily the most responses here, and scores that are
ahead of the longstanding incumbent in every service area bar
Spring 2019
globalcustodian.com
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