The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may be looking at its first peaceful transition of power since declaring independence in 1960, as now former president Joseph Kabila’s 18-year tenure has come to an end. Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was inaugurated without incident last week, despite accusations of electoral fraud.
Figures from The Banker’s database show that after a few difficult years, banks in the DRC were on their way to healthy profitability by the end of 2017. Of the country’s top five banks by assets, all but one’s pre-tax profits were in the black. This is no mean feat, given that the Congolese franc depreciated 31% against the US dollar over the course of that year.
Trust Merchant Bank (TMB) in particular made great strides after two years of declining profitability. TMB boosted pre-tax profits to $10m from $1m in 2016. In its latest annual report, the bank attributes this big leap to a 10% increase in deposits, the DRC’s GDP growth rate of 3.75% and strong FX hedges.
BGFIBank DRC Congo has kept its profits nearly level between 2014 and 2017, despite accusations in 2016 of wrongdoing involving fees paid to the country’s electoral commission. Rawbank and Bank of Africa Democratic Republic of Congo both saw a dip in 2017 pre-tax profits reported in US dollars. In the case of Rawbank, profits fell only slightly year-on-year when examined in the local currency, from CnFr16.27bn ($10m) to CnFr15.7bn in 2017.
