Financial Services in Africa

Africa’s banking sector looks promising for the future, Its markets are fast growing and nearly twice as profitable as the global average. Although competition is heightening and regulation is tightening, there is still much room to grow: Africa’s retail-banking penetration stands at just 38 percent of GDP, which is half the global average for emerging markets.

Africa today has the second-fastest-growing banking market -taking retail and wholesale banking together—in the world. Between 2012 and 2017, African banking-revenue pools grew at a compound annual growth rate of 11%. Africa is also the global banking industry’s second-most profitable region: the Return on Equity(ROE) of its banks in 2017 stood at 14.9 percent, second only to Latin America and comparable to other regions such as emerging Asia and the Middle East.