Kenya’s banks have been quick to move into newly independent South Sudan. Although the country is one of the world’s poorest and its infrastructure dire, the opportunities for banking over the next decade are immense, many Kenyan bankers believe, and their efforts are already paying off.
Conflict, corruption and too many failed businesses left it with a sclerotic banking sector with little appetite for risk, but South Sudan hopes its status as a newly created nation state will encourage investors to rethink their approach to an economy that hopes to underpin its regeneration with its rich reserves of oil.