European banks have been steadily reducing their retail and subsidiary operations across Africa, a shift that began around 2016 and accelerated after 2022. British and French lenders including Barclays, Standard Chartered, Société Générale, BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole have sold or scaled back operations in several African markets, while Moroccan, Nigerian and other regional banking groups have expanded into the space left behind.
The retreat does not mean that Africa has become unprofitable for banking. Instead, it reflects how major international banks are assessing the returns, regulatory capital requirements and operating risks associated with maintaining smaller operations across multiple African markets.
McKinsey said profitability across Africa’s five largest banking markets — Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa — declined by an average of about two percentage points between 2016 and 2022.
At the same time, Africa’s overall banking market remains large. McKinsey estimates that the continent’s banking sector generated about $107 billion in revenue in 2025, with roughly 70% coming from five markets.
Why European banks are reducing their Africa exposure
One of the reasons Europe’s biggest banks are reducing their footprint in Africa is the cost of capital and compliance. European banks operating across multiple jurisdictions must allocate regulatory capital to their subsidiaries while meeting increasingly demanding requirements around anti-money laundering, know-your-customer procedures and risk management.
For smaller African subsidiaries, those costs can become difficult to justify when the contribution to the parent group’s earnings is relatively limited.
Currency volatility is another consideration. Revenues generated in local currencies can lose value against the euro or pound when African currencies weaken, while economic and political risks can vary substantially from one market to another.
The result is that banks have increasingly focused capital on businesses and regions where they can achieve greater scale or stronger risk-adjusted returns.
The strategy has also coincided with a broader simplification of international banking footprints. HSBC, for example, has placed greater emphasis on Asia, while other European lenders have reduced operations outside their core markets.
Barclays started the major British retreat
Barclays was among the clearest early examples of Europe’s biggest banks reducing their footprint in Africa. The British bank began reducing its 62.3% holding in Barclays Africa Group in 2017. The African business later became Absa, and Barclays completed the sale of its remaining stake in 2022.
The transaction ended Barclays’ broad ownership exposure to a banking network spanning roughly a dozen African markets after almost a century of involvement on the continent. The bank has retained selected corporate and investment banking relationships.
Barclays had also sold its Egyptian business to Morocco’s Attijariwafa Bank in 2016 and its Zimbabwean operation to Malawi’s First Merchant Bank in 2017.
Standard Chartered follows with a multi-country withdrawal
Standard Chartered has also reduced its African retail and wealth-management footprint. In 2022, the British bank announced plans to exit Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. Several of those operations were subsequently sold to Nigeria’s Access Bank.
Standard Chartered has continued reviewing or selling retail and wealth operations in other markets while maintaining corporate and investment banking businesses in selected countries.
Société Générale accelerates French bank exits
Société Générale has undertaken one of the most extensive recent restructurings among French banks. Under CEO Slawomir Krupa, who took over in 2023, the bank accelerated the sale of several African businesses. Transactions have involved operations in countries including Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Madagascar, Guinea and Morocco.
In 2024, Société Générale agreed to sell its Moroccan subsidiary to Saham Group for €745 million.
The French bank has nevertheless maintained a presence in selected African markets, including Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia and South Africa, while continuing to provide corporate and investment banking services.
Its reported African net banking income subsequently fell as businesses were sold and removed from the group’s consolidated accounts.
BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole also cut exposure
Other major French banks have followed similar strategies. BNP Paribas began reducing parts of its sub-Saharan African portfolio from around 2019. It subsequently closed its corporate and investment banking business in South Africa in 2024 while continuing to review other holdings.
Crédit Agricole has also reduced its African exposure, including the sale of its majority stake in Crédit du Maroc and its withdrawal from South Africa. Its remaining presence is more concentrated in markets such as Algeria and Egypt.
Groupe BPCE has previously sold stakes in several African markets, including Cameroon, Tunisia, Madagascar and Congo.
Other international lenders have also reduced their exposure. HSBC has explored exits from selected African operations, while Credit Suisse transferred about $2.5 billion of African assets across nine countries before its absorption by UBS.
Africa’s international banking links are not disappearing
Despite the retreat by European banks from local subsidiaries, international lending to Africa has continued to grow. The Bank for International Settlements said cross-border loans to Africa increased from about $100 billion at the end of 2009 to approximately $264 billion by the end of 2025.
The composition of that financing has also changed. BIS data shows that Chinese banks expanded their lending rapidly after the global financial crisis. By 2020, Chinese banks accounted for about one-third of cross-border loans to Africa and had become the largest lending banking system to the continent.
By the end of 2025, Chinese banks were lending to more than 40 African countries and were the primary lender in 24 of them. French banks remained the second-largest lending banking system but were the primary lender in nine countries.
Cross-border bank lending to Africa also expanded again in 2025, with French, South African and US banks contributing to the increase.
African banks are filling the gap
The retreat of European banks from Africa has created opportunities for banks headquartered within Africa. Moroccan lenders such as Attijariwafa Bank and Bank of Africa have expanded across the continent, while Nigerian banks have increasingly pursued acquisitions outside Nigeria.
Access Bank has been particularly active, acquiring several operations previously owned by Standard Chartered. West African banking groups including Vista and Coris Bank have also acquired businesses being sold by international lenders.
Other regional institutions, including Ecobank, Absa and Mauritius Commercial Bank, remain important participants in the increasingly African-owned banking landscape. In some cases, governments have also become buyers when international banks decide to leave a market.