On the surface, nothing much appears to have changed at the top of The Banker’s listing of the Top 100 Sub-Saharan African Banks, with the South African banks continuing to dominate with a 66.6% share of the aggregate Top 100 Tier 1 capital, 78.2% of aggregate assets and 71% of aggregate profit.
The top five places continue to be occupied by banks from South Africa but the sixth ranked bank in the Republic, African Bank, continues to lose ground (from 10th to 12th) as the effects of the Nigerian banks increased capitalisation wash through. Nineteen of the 20 Nigerian banks that feature in our listing are in the top 30. Togo’s Ecobank Transnational has moved up to 10th place from 11th last year following a 57.1% uplift in capital through share placements and loan-to-share conversion as it seeks to establish itself as a pan-African player rather than a regional one and to increase its retail banking scale.
