Nthabeleng Likotsi’s YWBN Is The First Black Woman Owned Mutual Bank
Nthabeleng Likotsi’s YWBN Is The First Black Woman Owned Mutual Bank. Nthabeleng Likotsi started Young Women in Business Network (YWBN) in 2009 as a broad based women’s empowerment company, owned, controlled and managed by women from various professions, businesses and industries who are dedicated to the economic empowerment of young women and women in general. It has representation throughout South Africa and in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
In 2015 she decided to register the company as a financial institution. She said to open a financial institution one needs to have a minimum number of 200 members and R100 000. She said for her institution, the number grew to 540 shareholders. “The legislation did not allow us to offer our products to people who were not members of YWBN, but with the licence, this can be achieved,” she told Independent Online. She said the initial shareholders are the ones who are currently making decisions for the bank.
She said once the bank has been launched, all shareholders will be part of the decision-making. One of the decisions is whether she will continue being CEO of the bank. Likotsi said the biggest lesson she has learned is when one wants to start something they should just do it. “Even when naysayers said it can’t be done, I started. I believed that not everybody is going to support me; I also understood that there will be people who support me. I followed the process. Stay in the process as long as you believe in what you are doing, stay in the process because the process will bear fruit.” she added.
The company plans to have offices around the country. “We have our offices in Edenvale, Johannesburg, but we plan to expand, and it won’t be a brick and mortar business,” Likotsi told Independent Online. She said the Reserve Bank had given her 12 months to set up the bank before she can officially launch it to the public. Likotsi said her drive to own a bank was to have a financial institution that represented women. “In SA, black women especially in the financial sector are marginalised, we are not represented in senior executive positions so this is a big deal, the financial sector is male dominated, it’s a ’boys’ club’. From ownership, senior executive management to lower management the majority in the mutual bank are black women, this is for transformation purposes in the sector.” Likotsi told Independent Online.
Likotsi said acquiring the licence was a four-year journey. “It was extremely difficult to get the licence! There are stringent requirements, which is understandable because the role of the reserve bank is to ensure you are not going to be a fly by night, know your story. From June, we will have different types of shares to offer to different people depending on affordability.” she added.
Speaking to Business Report Online, she said she proposed to the Reserve Bank that the bank be majority-owned by South Africans. Likotsi’s mutual bank is digital, it will be available as an app on cell phones and she won’t have branches as it is not a commercial bank. She said while the bank was currently called YWBN, she was not sure if the name would be changed or not. She said the bank offered two products: savings, and business loans.
