A Gambian Commercial Bank will soon be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange, the first ever cross border stock market listing in West Africa. The Bank, Trust Bank Limited is expected to add some ?123 billion (300m Dalassis) to the GSE’s market capitalization, through the listing of 30 million shares of the bank.

However, the shares are being listed by the introduction of the GSE rather than through Initial Public Offer, which means that Trust Bank of Gambia is not attempting to raise new equity capital from Ghana’s stock market, at least for now. But once introduced, the shares will be traded on GSE’s secondary market.

The bank not only shares the same name with the Trust Bank of Ghana but like its Ghanaian counterpart, it was established to take over the assets of Meridien BIAO Bank in its home country in the wake of that international bank’s collapse. However the similarity in names is purely coincidental – Trust Bank of The Gambia and its Ghanaian name sake are not related. There is a Ghanaian link for the Gambian bank though, because it has a technical services agreement with Ghana’s SSB Bank.