Continental expansion: What to expect from Africa’s big banks in 2025 & beyond

Zenith, Access Bank, MCB and AFG lay out their market entry plans for this year, while weighing the threat – and opportunity – of rising intra-African competition.
By Oliver Nieburg
Speaking on the WebT show “African Banks, Pan-African Banks” at the Africa CEO Forum 2025, banking chiefs revealed timelines for major market entries and strategies to capitalise on international bank exits.
Zenith: Four new markets in 2025
Henry Oroh, Executive Director of Zenith Bank, said the Nigerian bank will expand to Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon and Kenya this year. “ There’s a strategy to move a little bit more into the francophone countries in Africa where we are not present yet,” he said, building on Zenith’s Paris office opening last year.
“We believe that with ‘size’, African banks will support African businesses without going cap in hand to the Western banks,” he continued.
Zenith secured $230m in late 2024 through an oversubscribed rights issue and public offering, partly for “expanding banking operations across Africa and internationally”.
“Africa is the next continent to look out for…the minerals are here, the resources are here, and the entire world is coming to Africa to see what we have. We need to take advantage of that – we need to build big banks to support that,” Oroh said.
MCB eyeing Abidjan and London
MCB has its sights on establishing hubs in Côte d’Ivoire and the UK.
Thierry Hebraud, CEO of Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) said “we are positioning ourselves in niches or gap that international banks have left and what local banks are not doing or not capable to do [due to funding costs]”.
MCB is well established in the Indian ocean as a universal bank with subsidiaries in Madagascar, Seychelles, Maldives and Reunion (in a JV with Société Générale). But is now targeting Corporate & Investment Banking gaps elsewhere.
The group has CIB hubs in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Dubai and a new representative office in Lagos. But the bank also wants to be in Abidjan and “at a certain moment” in London to develop proximity with clients.
“We are not here to compete with what the African banks are doing in their countries” Hebraud said, adding that MCB welcomes new entrants to Mauritius, citing Access Bank’s November 2024 acquisition of AfrAsia. “We are so happy with it, because this is giving us, the incentive and more capacity of developing the business together,” he said.
Michael Larbie, Group Executive, Corporate and Investment Banking, Ecobank, echoed this saying: “Sometimes it can be quite lonely, so we’re quite happy to have other banks come in – the amount of financing and banking needs is a lot. So, one bank alone cannot do it.”
An expanded presence also means greater synergies between African banks. Ecobank France, setup in 2008, for instance serves as a correspondent bank to Nigerian banks like Access Bank and UBA, said Larbie.
AFG: Seizing on international exits
Côte d’Ivoire-based financial group AFG is also expanding in the wake of international departures, and expects to shortly conclude a deal for Société Générale’s subsidiary in Guinea.
Ziyad Bundhun, who was last month appointed CEO of AFG Capital Mauritius, the group’s new investment bank in the Indian ocean, said “ clearly the bank is seizing on certain opportunities of the exit of the large multinational banks like Société Générale and Standard Chartered”.
Last year, AFG also established a banking presence in Madagascar and acquired Access Microfinance Holding, a microfinance institution based in Germany that serves Zambia, Nigeria, Malawi, Rwanda and Madagascar.
Access Bank: Embedding fintech and consolidating its presence
Others players are expected to take a conservative approach after a recent spree of acquisitions. Nigerian group Access Bank recently strengthened its East Africa presence, finalising its acquisition of National Bank of Kenya from KCB Group in May 2025, and Standard Chartered’s Consumer, Private, and Business Banking division in Tanzania in June.
The group will shortly finalise majority acquisitions of Bidvest Bank (South Africa) and AfrAsia Bank (Mauritius), following completed purchases of Standard Chartered subsidiaries in Angola and Sierra Leone late last year.
Elizabeth Oguegbu, Group Head, Financial Markets & Funding at Access Bank, said Access is now consolidating its presence to champion the intra-Africa agenda, and is focused on embedding fintech into its business as it has done recently with Oxygen (payday loans) and Hydrogen (payment services).
“It goes beyond putting flags on maps or getting licenses in every market,” said Oguegbu.“… Any bank or any institution that doesn’t adopt technology is going to fail or is going to die in the next couple of years.”
Dollar dependency: Is cryptocurrency the answer for intra-Africa trade?
Africa’s banking expansion should unlock intra-Africa trade, but Hebraud said the continent must addresses dollar dependency for cross-border transactions. “Is it normal that we are dependent on this currency?” He asked.
He expects Africa will shift from third-party currencies within five to 10 years, noting that “cryptocurrencies for me, are still a danger for many of us, but they are the future for the continent”.