Banks
Namibia has a highly sophisticated and developed commercial banking sector, comparable with the best in Africa. There are four commercial banks: Standard Bank, Nedbank Namibia, Bank Windhoek and FNB Namibia. Bank Windhoek is the only locally owned bank of the four; the others are subsidiaries of South African institutions. A significant proportion of bank loans come in the form of bonds or mortgages to individuals. There is little or no investment banking activity.
Regulation of Financial Services
Namibia’s central bank, Bank of Namibia, is the sector regulator. The Bank is responsible for registering commercial banks and foreign exchange services amongst other financial services. It works under the framework of the Banking Institutions Act (1998). The Bank works with the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (NAMFISA) and the Ministry of Finance, along with other parties, to maintain financial stability. The Financial Intelligence Centre is responsible for working against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (2012- 2013) gives Namibia a score of 5.9 out of 7 for soundness of banks, above the world mean of 5.1.
Development of Financial Services
The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index ranks Namibia 6th out of 46 sub-Saharan countries in overall ease of doing business. In terms of getting credit, Namibia’s performance is again strong, coming 5th. The country ranks 13th out of the countries in relation to protecting investors. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (2012- 2013) gives Namibia a score of 4.9 out of 7 for availability of financial services, above the world mean of 4.5. With regards to affordability of these services, the score is just below the world mean of 4.2 at 4.0. The country’s score equals with the world mean of 2.9 in terms of ease of access to loans. Financing through local equity market is just below the world mean of 3.5, at 3.4 out of 7. There has been much development in electronic financial services in recent years. There are two authorised electronic money issuers in Namibia: MobiPay which provides, amongst other things, specialist money services for farmers and merchants as well as remittances services. The other operator is Nan-mis Payment Solutions which improves accessibility with card and mobile money transfer services. The Payment Association of Namibia (PAN) seeks to improve safety and reliability of the payments system. Also in operation is the Namibia Inter-bank Settlement System (NISS) which is run by the Bank of Namibia.
