世界银行-非洲银行业：动荡时期的机遇与挑战（英）-2023.12-59页_645kb

Banking in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges in Volatile Times

Summary

This working paper analyzes the current state of Sub-Saharan Africa's banking systems, assessing their development, innovation, performance, and challenges. While Africa's banking sector has shown progress with increased stability and greater financial inclusion, it remains relatively shallow compared to comparable non-African developing countries across key dimensions such as financial depth and outreach.

Key findings include:

• Financial systems are below average on indicators like liquid liabilities to GDP, bank deposits to GDP, and private credit to GDP, with widening gaps from non-African systems.
• Sectors face high operational costs, limited intermediation of savings for long-term investment, and concentrated markets despite demonstrating resilience during crises like COVID-19.
• Financial inclusion has significantly improved through innovations like mobile banking (e.g., M-Pesa), branchless banking via agent networks, and digital payment systems, though access disparities persist.
• Geopolitical tensions and the shift in the global financial cycle create additional volatility risks.

The paper highlights both the opportunities enabled by financial innovation and the need for continued reforms in policies, competition, and long-term finance solutions to support sustainable economic development. Supervising and disseminating research findings presents ongoing challenges.