Bank of Uganda Governor Tumusiime Mutebile in exercise of its powers as receiver, under Sec 95(1)(b) of FIA, has confirmed that the institution has conveyed embattled Crane Bank’s assets to the Development Finance Company of Uganda Bank Limited and commonly known as DFCU.
Governor Mutebile says DFCU emerged overall winner among thirteen institutions that bid to take over Crane Bank.
Mutebile said on Friday, “All customers and depositors of Crane Bank shall now have their accounts operated by DFCU.
“We congratulates DFCU upon this significant milestone that will certainly make the bank’s footprint wider.
“We want to reassure the public that Bank of Uganda will continue to protect depositors interests and maintain stability of financial sector.
In October, a cash-strapped Crane bank was taken over by Bank of Uganda (BoU). In order to avoid a complete collapse of Crane bank, the government injected Shs 200bn to try and rescue the third-largest indigenous bank in the country.
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DFCU bank was established in 1964 and first acquired Global Trust Bank (GTB) in 2000, thereby transforming itself into a commercial bank.
On 25 July 2014, DFCU Bank acquired some of the assets and liabilities of the former GTB, a small retail financial institution that the Bank of Uganda had closed. The acquisition included all customer deposit accounts and all loan accounts. Those assets not taken over by DFCU “will be liquidated by Bank of Uganda”. The former assets of GTB that DFCU acquired were valued at about Shs73 billion.
As of December 2014, DFCU Bank was a major player in Uganda’s financial sector, with an estimated asset base of US$512.95 million (Shs 1.425 trillion) and with shareholders’ equity of about US$68.95 million (Shs 191.54 billion). In December 2014, the bank was the fifth-largest commercial bank in Uganda, by assets, accounting for approximately 7.7 percent of all bank assets in the country.
