BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – The Swaziland Building Society (SBS) has been given a green light by its over 2 000 members to convert from being a building society to become a bank.
This transpired today (Tuesday, November 19, 2024) during the society’s media briefing with the media at Open House Hotel in Mbabane. If everything goes well, the SBS will be known as SBS Bank of Eswatini (SBE), according to SBS Managing Director Mbali Sibanyoni. During the briefing, members of the media were informed that most of the members had voted in favour of the society’s conversion to a bank.
The voting took place at Zakhele Free Evangelical Assemblies (FEA) in Manzini over the past weekend. According to SBS Chairman Elijah Simelane, the members of the building society who voted on the day for the conversion, including proxies, were 2 684. Those who voted against the conversion were 82 and those that abstained were 47, while 22 of the ballots were spoiled. This means the members who voted on the day were 2 835.
Simelane said when the votes were converted into percentages, they found that those who voted in favour of the conversion were 94.67 percent. According to Simelane, one of the conditions for the financial services regulator (FSRA) is that members voting for the conversion should not be less than 75 percent. This means SBS was able to meet that requirement.
Those who voted against the conversion, according to Simelane, were 2.89 percent, while those who abstained were 1.66 percent. Spoiled ballots were 0.78 percent. Simelane said another factor that was considered when the voting was done was the value of the shares held by the members.
Regarding the value of the shares, Simelane said the value of those that voted for the conversion was around E691 122 613 and that made 63.24 percent of the value of the shares held by the society. This means the second condition was also met. This condition requires the value of the shares of those voting in favour of the conversion not to be less than 51 percent.
The share value of those who voted against the conversion was E5 861 303.55 and that translated to 0.5 percent of the value of the shares held by the society. For those that abstained, their share value was E6 582 340.32 and that translated to 0.6 percent of their share value.
Even though it became clear that the majority of the members of the society gave the organisation a go-ahead, the members of the media (including editors and reporters) still had questions, as they wanted clarity on certain issues. Most of the questions bothered on the society’s possibilities of losing money it held in trust for its members, clients and other stakeholders.
The scribes were concerned about the number of the voters who participated in the voting. They were concerned that members of the SBS were over 11 000 yet only 2 835 voted. They wanted to know what happened to the rest. They further mentioned that the conversion happened at a time when Emaswati lost over E300 million in the Ecsponent saga. However, in response, SBS management assured its members that their money would be safe, as they did everything they had to do to undergo the conversion process. They further mentioned that they now had to apply to Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) so that they could get the licence to operate as a bank.
