Absa's Mminele itching to get stuck in

Banking group Absa's new CEO, Daniel Mminele, is not one to cool off easily.

He is due to start work at the banking group only on Wednesday. But he was spotted at Absa's head office this week, almost as soon as his appointment was made public after a six-month cooling-off period.

This was imposed by the Reserve Bank, where Mminele spent 20 years, 10 of them as deputy governor. During that time he built the Bank's financial markets department and international department, as well as building his own reputation, locally and internationally, as an astute central banker.

He says the early foray into his new Absa office was just to sort out logistics. But he was clearly itching to get back to work - and in the commercial banking space, which he left when he was lured to the Reserve Bank in 1999. This was in part because he speaks fluent German and had experience in the international syndicated loans market at a time when the central bank was intensifying its borrowing in that market.

Mminele has been meticulous about observing the cooling-off period, even though it has since August been an open secret that he was the chosen candidate. He read as much publicly available information as he could find about Absa, but only now will he start talking to people inside and outside the bank and going deeper into the issues - which are tough ones.

German adolescence

Absa has lost significant market share since UK-based Barclays bought control of it in 2005, selling out in 2017. The banking group's share price has seriously underperformed those of its "big four" peers. It's been without a permanent CEO since Maria Ramos unexpectedly retired in February 2018. But the group has pressed ahead with rejigging its strategy, sorting out its separation from Barclays, and, as Mminele puts it, "almost reinventing itself" - which was one reason the job interested him.

When he decided he wanted to leave central banking, he dismissed the "quasi elder statesman" route of nonexecutive directorships because he felt that at 54 he was just too young to semi-retire. He also declined other public sector opportunities, and quickly discarded international options such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Bank for International Settlements.

"I was quite clear that I wanted to stay in SA and to continue to contribute to building SA. It was just as important to me to make a difference in the private sector as I did in the Bank and the public sector," says Mminele. But he's not keen to discuss his new role at this stage and is not saying yet what that difference will be.

Before heading into the office, Mminele fitted in one last quick trip to Madikwe game reserve. A keen wildlife photographer, he managed to pack in four trips to the bush during his six-month break, indulging a passion that dates back to his teenage years.

He was born on the border of the Kruger Park, in Phalaborwa, to a father who was a Lutheran pastor and a mother who later became a primary-school teacher.

His parents took the children to the Kruger often as a special treat. It was an essential part of every visit home from Germany, where Mminele was sent, just before he turned 14, to live with missionary friends of his parents. He was schooled there, in a village named Borchen, outside the town of Paderborn.

"It was rough," says Mminele. "But how many people had this opportunity? I had to grow up very quickly, and I learnt to persevere, to work hard, and to not accept that one could fail.

"The idea was that we would be educated there and hopefully come back one day and contribute to a free South Africa."

So it was a source of immense pride to his parents when he ended up at the Reserve Bank and became deputy governor.

It saw him recognised, too, by Germany, whose president conferred the Great Order of Merit on Mminele in January 2018, honouring him for his work in furthering German-South African relations and hailing his commitment to international co-operation.

Mminele says he has a passion for financial markets and really treasured his international work at the Bank. He established the Bank's international department in 2013 to support its growing role in global forums.

It was just as important to me to make a difference in the private sector as I did the Bank

The one thing he would like to have been able to complete at the Bank was his three-year term as chair of the deputies of the IMF's highest advisory body, the International Monetary and Financial Committee

(IMFC), supporting Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, who was appointed chair in 2017. A key area of focus at the time of his departure was the discussion around IMF resources and quota reforms. Mminele says he won't miss co-ordinating the drafting of

IMFC communiqués, which typically ended in the early hours of the morning.

As deputy governor Mminele was a valued member of the Bank's monetary policy and financial stability committees. But his role was always more banking and policy than regulatory. The financial markets department he created and at some stage led manages SA's foreign reserves and its financial markets operations, transacting with commercial banks. He also oversaw the Bank's activities as banker to the government as well as its exchange control and national payments system functions.

Analysts have hailed his track record as a central banker but some wonder about the transition to commercial banker in an industry that has changed radically over 20 years.

Mminele is well aware of the challenge. But he has a strong background in the industry, having started his career in the mailroom at Sparkasse Paderborn, the savings bank where he served a three-year apprenticeship to gain his German banker's qualification.

Meeting Trevor Manuel

He then joined West LB, spending two years in the late-1980s at its head office in Dusseldorf. He was posted to West LB's London branch, where he worked as a credit analyst and later in project and structured finance before leaving in 1995 to come home to the newly democratic SA.

His first meeting with Trevor Manuel was when the then finance minister visited Dusseldorf in 1994 to brief West LB's big corporate clients on the ANC's plans for the economy. Manuel connected him with ANC economists studying in London, including Kganyago and Brian Molefe.

Mminele joined German bank Commerzbank's newly established branch in SA as a corporate banking relationship manager before moving to the new African Merchant Bank (AMB).

It was an international road show - which was to be the first of many - that led Mminele to the Reserve Bank. SA was newly back to borrowing in international markets and the government had made its mandates to international banks conditional on their transferring skills to emerging banks in SA, such as AMB. After Mminele was taken along on a road show he was persuaded to give the Bank a try for a couple of years. He stayed for a "jam-packed 20 years".

Now, after six months of reflection, reading, friends and family time, he's ready for a new career. Markets will be watching closely to see whether he is the one to build a new-look Absa.