Financial Afrik offers a reading grid on the banks with the strongest regional impact through its ranking on the basis of total balance sheet, market capitalization, outstanding loans and deposits, GNP and, above all, African expansion , does not claim to be exhaustive.

The ranking of the top 30 African banks is a clear bias in favor of institutions that invest outside their countries of origin, thus contributing to increasing inter-African flows. The second bias represents the challenge of transparency. The result obtained after a long work of compilations reveals a pan-African competition between South African, Moroccan and Nigerian banks. The banks of these three countries have the largest number of branches and therefore serve the most customers across the continent.

Standard Bank remains by far the number one in this ranking, ahead of First Rand, Absa and Nedbank. Moroccan banks follow, ahead in terms of total assets but surpassing South Africans in the diversity of their African networks. The magic trio Attijariwafa Bank, BCP and BMCE Bank Of Africa now extends beyond the French-speaking area. The takeover of Barclays Egypt by Attijariwafa bank in 2017 is part of this dynamic. As for Nigerian banks, they remain timid in the French-speaking area where they continue to alternate acquisitions and disposals. The sale, at the end of 2017, of Diamond Bank to NSIA Banque is a good illustration of this trend.