The story
The bank's history traces from 1916 when the National Bank of South Africa (now First National Bank) opened a branch. In 1925, National Bank of South Africa was merged with the Anglo-Egyptian Bank and the Colonial Bank in 1925 to form Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas). This brought the Kenyan operations under Barclays Bank.
The bank was licensed in its present form in 1953 and in 1978 it was incorporated locally as Barclays Bank of Kenya, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank International. The bank listed its shares on the Nairobi Stock Exchange in 1986 through a successful IPO. These shares trade under the symbol: BARC.
Before 2013, The bank is a subsidiary of Barclays Bank Plc. (through Barclays Africa), an International financial services conglomerate, whose shares of stock are listed on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol: BARC and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol: BCS. In 2013, Barclays Plc adopted the combined strategy to operate as “One Bank in Africa” with an aim of increasing efficiency and boosting returns from the African Units. This led to the merging of all Barclays Plc. businesses in Africa (other than Egypt and Zimbabwe units) through Absa Group Limited, leading to the formation of Barclays Africa Group. The stock of Barclays Africa Group, which owns 68.5% of Barclays Bank of Kenya, is listed on the JSE.
From Wikipedia’s article on Absa Bank Kenya, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5