Bank of the South Pacific (BSP) Limited has officially acquired the Vanuatu operations of the Westpac Banking Corporation.
A statement released this afternoon by BSP Group chairman, Sir Kostas Constantinou OBE, confirmed the acquisition.
BSP had announced in January last year that it had entered into a proposed sale agreement to purchase Weatpac operations in the Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. The regional expansion was suspect to regulatory approval by the Bank of Papua New Guinea and respective regulators in each country.
“Given the impact of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu, the proposed sale of Westpac’s Vanuatu operations did not proceed in 2015, with the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu approving the purchase on 11 November 2015, for completion on 1 July 2016,” Sir Kostas stated.
“This has now occured at close of business on 1 July 2016.”
The purchases of Westpac’s operations in the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga were completed last July, with the Solomon Islands branch of Westpac joining the fold in October 2015.