JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Barclays Africa Group plans to spend 1.2 billion rand ($118 million) over thenext three years on refurbishing its branch network in SouthAfrica, its head of retail and business banking said on Monday.
The bank previously called Absa is trying to win backlower-income customers lost to Capitec Bank Holdings and business clients taken by Standard Bank, Craig Bondsaid at a media briefing. The bank still uses the Absa brand inSouth Africa.
"We lost a lot of customers to Capitec. We were veryconservative on personal loans," said Bond, who joined Barclaysin January from Standard Bank, where he had been headof the China business.
Barclays has "lost hundreds of thousands of customers" toCapitec, he said.
Capitec, South Africa's sixth-largest bank by market value,has enjoyed rapid growth by focusing on lucrative, short-termloans to low-income borrowers who were previously under-servedby South Africa's main street banks.
Barclays now plans to win back retail customers by bothupgrading individual branches, and rejigging its branch networkto meet needs of local areas, Bond said.