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Absa GroupSouth Africa
Active
This profile is actively maintained
Last update: 2025-03-06 15:59:43
Absa Group head offices. Photo: Courtesy of Absa Group
Active
This profile is actively maintained
Last update: 2025-03-06 15:59:43
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About
| Website | https://www.absa.africa/absaafrica/ |
| Headquarters |
7th Floor, Absa Towers West 15 Troye Street
2000 Johannesburg
South Africa
|
| CEO/chair |
Charles Russon Interim Group CEO |
| Supervisor | |
| Ownership |
listed on JSE Limited
Absa Group's shareholder structure can be accessed here. |
Absa Group Limited was formed through a series of mergers and acquisitions over more than 100 years, starting in 1888, to form one of Africa’s largest financial institutions. Absa Group offers retail, business, corporate, investment and wealth banking services as well as investment management and insurance. Absa Bank Limited in South Africa is its principal banking subsidiary. The Group has majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania (Absa Bank and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia. The Group also has offices in Namibia, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as insurance operations in Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia.
Sustainability
Commitments
Policies
Voluntary standards
Absa Group's most important sustainability commitments can be found at the website sections listed below.
Links
Absa Group has committed itself to the following voluntary standards:
Dodgy Deals
Absa Group is linked to a number of companies and projects that BankTrack considers controversial (so called Dodgy Deals), e.g. as a current or past financier or through an expression of interest. The profiles below provide more details on the nature of Absa Group's link to these deals.
Projects / Companies
Finance type
Year
News
BankTrack
Partners
Blog
External
Resources
Documents
Accountability
Grievances
Absa Group does not operate a complaints or grievances mechanism for individuals or communities that might have been affected by the bank's finance.
Absa Group is an Equator Principles signatory. While the Equator Principles have no official grievance mechanism, complaints relating to this bank's financing of Equator Principles projects can be filed through our own website www.equator-complaints.org.
This page evaluates Absa Group's responses to instances of alleged human rights violations linked to its finance, raised by civil society organisations. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but covers selected impacts raised by BankTrack and other civil society partners since 2016. For the full scoring methodology, see here. For more information about BankTrack's evaluation of bank responses to human rights impacts, see the 2021 report "Actions speak louder: assessing bank responses to human rights violations".
Impacts reviewed
Responded?
Total score
Response
Action
Monitoring
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Banks and Climate
Banks and Climate
Partner organisation Reclaim Finance tracks the coal, oil and gas policies of financial institutions, including banks, in their Coal Policy Tool (CPT) and the Oil and Gas Policy Tracker (OGPT). BankTrack works closely with Reclaim Finance and endorses their policy assessments. Find further details on their assessment of Absa Group’s fossil fuel policy below.
Banks and Human Rights
Banks and Human Rights
BankTrack assessed Absa Group in its 2021 Human Rights Benchmark Africa, where it achieved 2 points out of 14 and was ranked as a 'laggard'. More information is detailed in the "Accountability" section of this profile.
Human Rights Benchmark Africa 2021
BankLast update
Country
Score
Ranking
Details
Absa Group
ZAF
2
Laggard
2
0
Explanation
Laggard
Follower
Front runner
Leader
0 - 3.5 points
4 - 5.5 points
6 - 8.5 points
9 - 14 points
For more details see this page.
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