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TimesLIVE
31-05-2025
- Business
- TimesLIVE
Absa merges retail banking offerings as a building block for growth
Absa Group interim CEO Charles Russon says the bank is combining its three South African retail banking businesses into a single retail bank as part of a building block for its retail banking ambitions. Absa on Friday announced leadership and operational model changes for its retail banking business. The group is merging Everyday Banking, the Product Solutions Cluster and Private Wealth Banking segment into a new retail segment known as Personal and Private Banking. It named Christine Wu and Geoffrey Lee, the former CEOs of Everyday Banking and the Product Solutions Cluster respectively, as interim co-CEOs of the newly formed entity. Relationship Banking will now operate as Business Banking, paving the way for a focused approach in serving SMEs and commercial clients in a targeted sector. Business Banking will be led by Faisal Mkhize, who headed up Relationship Banking. The appointments come two weeks before Kenny Fihla, the former Standard Bank deputy CEO, joins Absa as the second black CEO on June 17. Russon told Business Times that Fihla would make the final appointment of a permanent Personal and Private Banking CEO. 'We all agreed it makes sense to continue with the process. The logic does not change, he (Fihla) can make the final appointment. Clearly it is a key process for him. We are starting the process but we are not constraining him to an outcome that he cannot work with.' An Absa insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said many employees doubted the rationale of appointing two interim CEOs for the retail business. 'Many of us internally see the reconfiguration as a positive step. But we are sceptical about the appointment of the co-CEOs even though it's on an interim basis. The old retail and business bank had a terrible performance in 2023.' Russon said the appointment made sense as Wu and Lee were running 95% of the business cluster. 'They are logical people to run it on an interim basis while we run the process in the background of appointing a CEO. The real crux is to appoint the permanent CEO, not the interim CEOs who are leading the business for a period of time.' He said a week ago that the group had completed the selection process for the cluster's vacancies with no job losses during the process. 'At this stage there are no job losses, we are not doing this to cut costs and remove roles. That was not the motivation. The motivation for this is that we wanted to bring our retail business together to ensure we showed up in the right way for our customers,' he said. Russon said the move to combine the businesses followed feedback from stakeholders last year including shareholders, regulators, investors and clients who had flagged the effectiveness of the cluster under its previous structure. 'The single item that was flagged and raised was why are you running your retail South African business as three separate businesses? Some were as precise as to say we don't understand it and we cannot invest in you, it is too confusing. As part of the strategy with the board last year as an executive committee we agreed this was a building block that had to be done, and you cannot wait for the permanent CEO of the group. It is something that was obvious and anyone coming in would bring this business unit together. We then communicated it to the market in December last year,' he said. Absa, which has 12.7-million customers, reported a 10% increase in headline earnings in the year ended December 2024. Russon said there is still a lot of work to do in the retail segment of the market where there is a lot of disruption. 'I think it is incredibly competitive — not just with banks. You have telcos, you have insurance companies, you've got consumer retailers all playing in and around the financial services space for the retail consumer. This is setting us up in the right way. Ultimately, with the right leader at the end of this process we should be set up for success,' he said.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The British high street institution used to wash dirty cash: Why money launderers are turning to 400-year-old retailer to deposit their ill-gotten gains
It's a High Street staple that's existed for nearly 400 years, but why are money launderers turning to the Post Office to wash their dirty cash? Thousands of legitimate businesses and tradesmen around the UK rely on the chain's Everyday Banking service, which allows them to use its counters to deposit cash into the accounts they hold with banks. Available at all 11,500 Post Offices around the country, it's become even more valuable as big banks continue to close branches. But the National Crime Agency warns the service is regularly being exploited by criminals to inject money earned from crimes such as drug dealing into the financial system. The National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) estimates that hundreds of millions of pounds are laundered each year through this method. One reason could be the 'greater anonymity' offered by the service given that, unlike bank employees, Post Office staff do not have access to a customer's account information when they made a deposit. In its 2025 National Strategic Assessment, the NCA said dirty cash was often deposited into the bank accounts of front companies like car washes, nail bars and barber shops. By being combined with 'clean' cash generated from members of the public using these businesses, the illicit profits are disguised as the profits of legitimate business activity. 'Cash intensive businesses, such as car washes, nail bars, and barber shops are used to introduce criminal cash into the financial sector often via the everyday banking facility at the Post Office,' the agency stated in its 2025 National Strategic Assessment. Banks generally limit cash deposits in personal accounts via the Post Office to around £3,000 a day or £20,000 a year. But the limits for business accounts are higher - usually up to £10,000 in a single transaction or £40,000 per month. Most banks now require a debit card and PIN, although some still permit the use if paying in slips that have to be ordered by the customer in advance. Richard Simms, a managing director of anti money laundering service AMLCC, said any criminal wanting to deposit dirty money in a bank account would choose what they saw as the least risky method. 'It's about trying to find an option where people ask fewer questions,' he told MailOnline. 'They want to feel comfortable they won't be exposed and feel under less scrutiny. And when one discovers this is as good route to do it they will tell other people.' Mr Simms said criminals would be reluctant to hand over an ID while making a deposit, something that is not generally required at the Post Office, and would often ask someone else to drop off the cash on their behalf to avoid CCTV cameras. Crooks taking in lots of illicit cash from activities like drug dealing would typically set up a business as a front alongside a linked business bank account, he added. 'If you are using a company bank account you need to give the bank a story when you first set it up - such as that you work as a market trader so will be bringing lots of cash in varying amounts. 'In most cases there has to be some kind of actual business activity taking place to make it seem more legitimate. You might then mix in drugs from drug sales from market trading income. 'There will often be an accountant who files accounts on Companies House. They might even pay corporation tax and give themselves a dividend. So it looks absolutely legitimate despite the bulk of the income coming from drug money.' Another tactic, called smurfing, involves splitting one cash sum into multiple small transactions. 'So you could get lots of people to pay in money to their accounts and then send it on to your own one,' Mr Simms explained. 'And you create a cover story that these payments are for a legitimate purpose, like online purchases. The more elaborate the story is, the more plausible it is and the more effective it will be.' A Chinese student was jailed for nearly 18 months for laundering nearly £85,000 for a crime boss. Xiaotong Huang, 28, travelled around Scotland in a Mercedes distributing money given to her by Wai Ma - who went by 'Mr Big'. This attracted the attention of the police, and she was watched by undercover surveillance officers as she deposited £3,500 worth of cash at the travel money counter at a Post Office in Stirling. Huang used her slice of the profits to pay her tuition fees at the University of Stirling and buy luxury goods from Gucci, Burberry, Coach and Harrods. She also bought £6,900 of wine in one week and bought a £480 Louis Vuitton bag. She was jailed for 18 months after being found guilty of money laundering following a trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court in March 2023. The NCA told MailOnline: 'The Post Office plays an important role in protecting access to cash for people and small businesses. However, it is exploited by criminals, who believe there are fewer controls and safeguards in place to spot and prevent suspicious activity. 'The National Economic Crime Centre continues to work closely with the Post Office, FCA and financial services to identify vulnerabilities, drive activity and target criminality.' This is not the first time the Post Office has been linked to money laundering, with the Home Office noting 'an increase' in the amount of dirty money being washed through the Post Office as far back as 2020. The Post Office said: 'All Post Office colleagues in branch are regularly trained to spot, reject and report suspicious activity and we work closely with the banks to share information to ensure any hot spots of suspicious activity is shared with local Postmasters and Law Enforcement. 'It is a bank's responsibility to carry out appropriate Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, due diligence checks and to monitor the account activity of their customers and ensure it is commensurate with their expected activity.' The FCA said it was 'reviewing' how banks and other institutions managed the risk from money laundering but said there was a 'balance to be struck' so that people who rely on cash can continue to access it.
