South Africa's banks remain most profitable in Africa
Six of the top 10 African banks by profit are from South Africa, with banks from Morocco, Algeria and Nigeria making up the list.
South African institutions still dominate Africa's most profitable banks list, with six of the 10 top African banks by pre-tax profits based in the country. Standard Bank Group is the most profitable bank by a distance, with $2.8bn in pre-tax profits. This is despite recording a decrease of 4.34% in annual profits. Three other South Africa-based lenders, FirstRand, Absa Group and Investec, saw their annual pre-tax profits decrease by 10.3%, 2.34% and 9.67%, respectively, but still placed in the top 10.
The most profitable African bank outside of South Africa is Morocco-based Attijariwafa Bank, with $927m in pre-tax profit. Attijariwafa recorded an annual increase in profits of 9.88%. The largest annual increase inside the top 10 was recorded by Algeria's Banque Nationale d'Algerie, which saw annual profits rise by 40.55% to $608m. Nigeria-based Guaranty Trust Bank recorded an annual increase of 21.96% to $392m. Banque Nationale d'Algerie and Guaranty Trust Bank were both new entrants to the top 10, replacing two Egypt-based institutions, National Bank of Egypt and Commercial International Bank, which were ranked sixth and 10th, respectively, in the previous year's profitability ranking.
See the full African bank rankings – South Africa keeps African banking's top spots.
