In the past two years, Angola’s banks have been given a sombre reminder of their excesses in the first decade of this century. When the country’s civil war ended in 2002, the financial sector was, much like the overall economy, in a bad state. The few banks that existed were mostly state-owned and inefficient. They had barely $3bn of assets between them.
Since then, their growth has been dizzying. At the end of 2012, they had almost $62bn of assets, says consultancy firm Deloitte. The number of lenders has swollen to 24. Only three of them are controlled by the state. The rest are either owned by local investors or by foreign banks, with those from Portugal, the former colonial ruler, having the heaviest presence.
