Telenor buys KBC Banka

(Gi Libo and Ove Fredheim)

Telenor Serbia said on Friday it has signed an agreement to take over a local unit of Belgian banking and insurance group KBC in a push to introduce mobile financial services to the Balkan country's market, SeeNews reports.

Under the agreement, Telenor Serbia will take over a 100% stake in local KBC Banka while the local unit of France's Societe Generale will assume KBC Banka's portfolio of clients which includes 81,000 individuals, entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises, Telenor Serbia said in a statement.

- When we open a new Telenor bank we will offer customers in Serbia innovative mobile banking services of European standard and quality, easy to use and available any time and from any place - Telenor Serbia's CEO Ove Fredheim said in the statement.

The deal is yet to be approved by the National Bank of Serbia and the competition commission, Fredheim said, adding that he expects the project to wrap in a couple of months.

The move is in line with Telenor Group's global strategy which pinpoints financial services as one of the key strategic development goals with an ambition to generate $1.0 billion (764.8 million euro) in revenue by 2016.

Telenor entered the Serbian market with the acquisition of local telecommunications company Mobi63 in 2006. Since then the company invested 1.63 billion euro in the Balkan country.

Telenor Serbia competes on the domestic market of some 7.3 million people with Telekom Srbija's mobile unit, MTS, and VIP Mobile, a unit of Telekom Austria Group.