Major shift in African banking

Africa’s banking sector is undergoing a structural shift as longstanding multinational banks exit the continent, creating space for local lenders to expand their footprint and influence.

The transition can be traced to early 2016 when Barclays, in Africa since 1916, announced its gradual exit from the continent. The move was completed in 2022 with the sale of its last 7.4% stake to South Africa’s Absa Group, enabling it to gain presence in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, in a deal then valued at $2.1 billion. 

Atlas Mara, another British group formerly led by Bob Diamond, an old Barclays hand, followed suit in 2019, leaving Rwanda, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Standard Chartered (Stanchart), one of the world’s oldest banks, has also been steadily scaling back from Africa since March 2022 when it first announced its major divestment from a market it entered in 1862. Its focus, it says, is now on corporate and investment banking, while hiving off its wealth and retail banking (WRB) units. 

The main beneficiaries of the realignment have been Africa’s leading lenders, Nigeria’s homegrown Access Bank, and its South African counterparts Absa and FirstRand, who 

have moved quickly to buy the assets British banks are selling across the continent, thus expanding their reach. 

In July 2023, Access Bank acquired Stanchart subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Ivory Coast. 

Stanchart’s head for Africa and Middle East, Sunil Kaushal, presented the move as being “in line with the bank’s global strategy, aimed at achieving operational efficiencies, reducing complexity and driving scale”.

The chief executive of buyer Access Group, Roosevelt Ogbonna, saw it as an opportunity “to build a strong global franchise focused on serving as a gateway for payments within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world”.

Across Southern Africa, in May 2024, Stanchart sold 100% of its Zimbabwe outfit to FBC Holdings, a local group with interests in banking, microfinance, insurance and property.

“This acquisition goes beyond geographic expansion,” said FBC Holdings chief executive Trynos Kufazvinei. “We are creating a financial powerhouse that caters for the evolving needs of Zimbabwe’s dynamic economy.”

In November 2024, Stanchart moved to sell its WRB businesses in Botswana, Uganda and Zambia. Absa bought the Ugandan assets. In Zambia, FNB, a subsidiary of FirstRand, signed off a $150 million deal. In January 2026, Stanchart changed its decision on Botswana to a complete sale, a process expected to take 12 to 15 months. 

In all the countries where Stanchart has scaled back, it has had a tough time fending off suspicion that it is closing entirely. In Zambia, where the bank has operated since 1906, most of its branches have closed but its CEO, Sonny Zulu, justified the move on priority grounds. 

“In most of Africa, we have made a strategic decision to focus on CIB,” he said, while pitching digital banking as the future for retailers. 

Farewell Françafrique

British banks are not alone in getting out of Africa. No region of the continent has had deeper economic ties with a former colonial power than West Africa, even requiring them to deposit a share of their foreign reserves with the French treasury. But even there, French banks have in the last few years quit the North and West African markets they once dominated. 

For instance, since 2023, Société Générale has exited Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Togo, Morocco, Congo, Mozambique and Madagascar, leaving the Vista Group to snap up most of the assets.  

The increasing footprints of Africa’s own banks could reshape the long running debate about the dominance of foreign lenders and their impact on Africa’s economic development. It is an emotive subject that politicians often weigh in on.

“You can’t grow an economy with a banking sector dominated by foreign banks,” Zambia’s opposition leader Fred M’membe, of the Left-leaning Socialist Party, argues.  

Bank ownership in Africa is deeply rooted in colonial legacy. Post-independence, banks across much of Africa were foreign-owned, often prioritising their home markets over local economic development. 

In response to the dominance, African governments nationalised foreign banks as the wave of nationalism swept the continent. But market reforms of the 1990s, inspired by the World Bank and IMF Structural Adjustment Programs, saw a re-privatisation of the financial sector. 

Reading company statements from the transactions, a common thread runs through. Sellers speak of the need to “streamline operations”, “create operational efficiency” and “focus on core markets”, while Western analysts largely blame “regulatory hurdles” and Africa’s “challenging operating environment”. All this is corporate-speak for unattractiveness. 

Yet it is this market that African banks are bullish about and expanding into at a fast rate. It is clear that the sellers and buyers see things through different lenses, although their interests converge on the signing table.