PTA rebrands to Trade and Development Bank

KAMPALA.

The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank has rebranded from “PTA Bank” to Trade and Development Bank.
The bank made the announcement last week after operating under its legal name ‘’Eastern and Southern African Trade & Development Bank” as well as two trading names in English and in French: PTA Bank / Banque de la ZEP for more than three decades since its establishment.
The bank, currently with a balance sheet of $4b (Shs14.4 trillion), is also dropping its blue logo for a green African map.
“Our rebranding represents our rejuvenation and recommitment to innovate and play a more active role in promoting trade, economic development and regional integration, at a crucial time when the region is looking to advance economic transformation and ratchet up the tapering growth,” Mr Admassu Tadesse, President and chief executive of the Trade and Development Bank, said in a press statement released in Kampala last week.
The finance institution will continue increasing financing for priority sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, industry and agribusiness across the 21 member states it operates in, over the next five years.
Mr Tadesse said: “In recent years, we have been giving a big boost to our financing of trade, enterprise and infrastructure, which is evidenced in the tripling of our loan assets in the past five years.”
The rebranding follows several years of improved asset quality, healthy profitability and innovation, on the back of a series of institutional reforms aimed at strengthening and modernising the bank.
“We have dramatically increased our capacity to meet the rising demand for the bank’s products and services, thanks to the strong funding partnerships we have built up with long term funders and investors. Our shareholder base has increased by more than 50 per cent in recent years, with several new institutional investors and member states. Indeed our equity capital has tripled since we embarked on the current corporate plan in 2012,” Ms Mary Kamari, the director of corporate affairs and investor relations TDB, said.
The Trade and Development Bank will continue supporting independent power and transport projects, as well as agribusiness, and industry, alongside trade financing of essential commodities such as fertilisers, equipment, agricultural commodities and petroleum.
In the past, the bank has financed agribusiness projects throughout eastern and southern Africa, notably Malawi and Sudan, and provided important asset finance facilities to the air-transport sector in the region, with Rwanda Air, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines benefiting.