{"id":314896,"date":"2019-05-03T15:25:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=314896"},"modified":"2019-05-03T15:25:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:25:54","slug":"competition-commission-approves-capitec-and-mercantile-bank-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/314896\/competition-commission-approves-capitec-and-mercantile-bank-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition Commission approves Capitec and Mercantile Bank deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission has <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.compcom.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Weekly-Media-Statement-03-May-2019-Final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recommended<\/a> <\/strong>that the proposed acquisition of Mercantile Bank by Capitec be approved without conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission found that the proposed transaction is unlikely to result in a substantial prevention or lessening of competition in the relevant markets.<\/p>\n<p>It further found that the proposed transaction does not raise any public interest concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The final decision will now be handed down by the Competition Tribunal.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2018, Capitec\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/286426\/capitec-targets-business-banking-as-mercantile-bank-acquisition-approved\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>its acquisition of shares in Mercantile Bank in a move to formally enter the business banking space.<\/p>\n<p>Capitec paid R3.2 billion to the Portuguese based Caixa Geral de Dep\u00f3sitos (CGD) for its entire 100% stake in Mercantile Bank.<\/p>\n<p>CGD sold the bank as part of a strategic recapitalisation plan approved by the European Commission and requiring CGD to reduce its foreign assets.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/312906\/free-burgers-petrol-and-concerts-how-south-african-banks-are-trying-to-win-over-customers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Free burgers, petrol and concerts \u2013 how South African banks are trying to win over customers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In November 2018, Capitec\u00a0announced\u00a0its acquisition of shares in Mercantile Bank in a move to formally enter the business banking space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":307578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-314896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314896"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314924,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314896\/revisions\/314924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}