JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - The board of South African banking group Absa had accepted a bid for a takeover by Barclays, Britain's third largest bank, Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni said.
The deal, if clinched, could see the largest cash inflow in post-apartheid South Africa worth billions of dollars and was called a sign of "confidence in the future of the country" by President Thabo Mbeki.
"The board of Absa, as far as I understand it, have accepted the bid," the SAPA news agency quoted Mboweni as saying in Cape Town.
The board of the country's fourth-largest banking group would now approach shareholders about the bid -- and only after that, would it formally apply to the local Registrar of Banks for approval, Mboweni told the parliament's portfolio committee on finance.
Absa's biggest shareholder, insurance group Sanlam, which holds 21 percent stake in the banking group, said two weeks ago it was ready to consider an offer rumoured to be worth billions of dollars.
The deal is expected to go through several stages.
Absa will also have to win authorisation from local officials for the takeover and on that score, there have been contradictory signals.
Meanwhile Absa played down Mboweni's comments, saying "due to stock exchange regulations, we are not able to comment in detail on the process."
"We can't issue comment what Mboweni has said," Errol Smith, Absa's media manager told AFP.
"There is still a lot of work to do," he added. "When things are sufficiently advanced and we are in a position to give more detail, we will do so in the form of a proper announcment."
Absa employs some 31,000 people, and has seen its share prices soar by 40 percent since the beginning of the year amid speculation of a foreign takeover.
But rumours of the takeover has sparked fears of retrenchments.