The licence approval is subject to conditions which BBS is required to address before a full license is granted by the Bank of Botswana, BBS said in a statement on Friday, though it didn't say what the conditions were.
"We are confident that the matters noted by Bank of Botswana for resolution are not insurmountable," Managing Director Pius Molefe said in a statement. "The board and management are working very hard to ensure that the issues are dealt with to the satisfaction of Bank of Botswana in the shortest time possible."
BBS, which has been in operation as a building society since 1976, completed a demutualisation exercise in 2018 converting into a company limited by shares.
Through the demutualisation BBS aimed to become more competitive by providing other banking services which it had been prohibited to offer by the Building Societies Act. Winning a commercial banking license would continue this trend.
"This exciting development means that BBSL will become the first indigenous financial institution to operate as a commercial bank since Botswana attained independence 55 years ago," Molefe said.
BBS is owned by both institutional and individual investors who converted their deposits and investments into shares when it demutualised.
Botswana currently has nine commercial banks, all foreign owned, with South Africa's First National Bank (FNB), a retail unit of FirstRand, being the largest with a loan book of 13.6 billion pula ($1.2 billion).
($1 = 11.4286 pulas)
(Reporting by Brian Benza; Editing by David Holmes)
