Commercial Bank of Africa

Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd (CBA) was founded in 1962 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and immediately thereafter established branches in Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, and in Kampala, Uganda. With the nationalisation of banks in Tanzania, CBA was incorporated in Kenya in 1967. CBA originally commenced business as a subsidiary of Societe Financiere pour les pays D'Outre Mer (SFOM), a Swiss-based consortium bank with interests in financial institutions throughout Africa. The consortium members included Bank of America, Commerzbank (whose interest was later sold to Dresdner Bank), Bank Bruxelles Lambert and Banque National de Paris. In 1980, Bank of America acquired the shares of all the other SFOM partners and CBA became a subsidiary of Bank of America, with 16% of the shares held by Kenyan investors. Bank of America re-organised CBA, developing and installing Bank of America`s global systems and disciplines before selling it's majority shares to local investors. Bank of America continued to provide management to the bank via a management agreement before eventually selling the rest of its shares. CBA is one of East Africa's largest privately owned banks and has Operations in Kenya and Tanzania.