Nedbank wins the best digital bank in Africa award for the second year in a row, courtesy of its push to reform and re-engineer its IT system, with the aim of cutting costs, attracting new business and favouring an approach that focuses on evolution rather than revolution.

The bank’s chief executive has led from the front to create an institution that is more diverse and better reflects the society in which it works.

Like most of South Africa’s big banks, Nedbank is on a mission to reform and re-engineer its IT system, using it to attract new business, cut costs and roll out new services.

At a time when sustainability issues are rising in importance for all South African banks, Nedbank has led the way in terms of its commitment to environment, social and governance goals. This green agenda is vital in a country that is prone to drought, is Africa’s biggest polluter, heavily reliant on coal for its electricity and in desperate need of a rapid increase in its power generation capacity.

Nedbank and QNB’s increased shareholding in Ecobank has brought into question the bank’s future, but as Smit Crouse of Nedbank states, the South African bank has no intention of becoming a majority stake holder in the bank.

In an interview with Euromoney, Mike Brown, CEO of Johannesburg-based Nedbank, clarifies ownership and business intentions with Togo’s pan-African lender ETI – the two having operated a client-sharing service since 2008 – which has been subject of takeover rumours for years.

Mike Brown, chief executive of Nedbank, talked to Nick Kochan days after the announcement of the prospective purchase of his bank by HSBC in late August.