Nigerian financial institutions have cemented their leadership position in African banking, with Guaranty Trust Bank retaining the top spot in The Africa Report’s annual 300 Finance Champions ranking for the second consecutive year, while four Nigerian lenders occupy positions in the top ten.
The 2025 edition published October 30 evaluates 29 pan African banking groups, 200 national financial institutions, and leading insurers across the continent using five equally weighted criteria including profitability, solvency, liquidity, credit quality, and total assets. Guaranty Trust Bank scored 75.9 points overall, followed by Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) at 68.5 and Zenith Bank at 68.
Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) in August injected 365.9 billion naira, approximately 238.5 million dollars, into its banking arm through a capital increase of nearly seven million ordinary shares. This brought share capital above 504 billion naira, meeting the Central Bank of Nigeria requirement of 500 billion naira minimum capital.
One month earlier, GTCO achieved another milestone by becoming the first West African financial institution to list on the London Stock Exchange’s secondary market, aiming to attract major international investors and accelerate its continental footprint. The group indicated plans to explore entry into Senegal and accelerate growth in Kenya and Rwanda.
Nigerian banks occupying top ten positions include Zenith Bank at third, United Bank of Africa at fifth, Access Bank at ninth, and First Bank of Nigeria at twelfth. Their strength reflects Nigeria’s unique operating environment, with high domestic interest rates widening net interest margins while strong deposit bases provided cheap funding at scale.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has held the benchmark monetary policy rate at 27.5 percent since February 2025, creating favorable conditions for lenders. Interest rates on deposits around 10 to 11 percent enabled Nigerian banks to overcome forex volatility and regulatory uncertainty at home, while extensive pan African footprints across West and Central Africa provided natural hedges.
Henry Oroh, executive director at Zenith Bank, emphasized the institution’s aggressive business approach balanced with capital preservation priorities. Despite international licenses, Nigerian banks remain largely domestically dependent, with over 80 percent of both top line and bottom line numbers generated locally over the past two years, according to Damilare Asimiyu, macroeconomic strategist at Afrinvest (West Africa) Consulting.
Tight monetary stance, improved financial inclusion rising to 78 percent in 2024 from 63 percent in 2022, and rapid adoption of digital channels underpinned stronger balance sheets, higher profitability and improved investor sentiment. The profitability index for Nigerian banking groups showed relatively high returns on equity, with Guaranty Trust Bank recording 37.53 percent, though analysts warn forex revaluation gains from naira devaluation in 2023 and 2024 will not repeat in 2025.
Egyptian banks maintained strong positions through sheer balance sheet scale. Commercial International Bank held second place, National Bank of Egypt rose two spots to fourth, Banque Misr jumped two places to sixth, and Banque du Caire retained fourteenth position. Egypt’s banking sector gained momentum from structural reforms including shifts in forex policy and adoption of inflation targeting, strengthening financial stability.
South African institutions Standard Bank at seventh, FirstRand at fifteenth, Nedbank at eighteenth, and Absa at twenty third remain among the continent’s largest but lost relative ground compared to Nigerian and Egyptian rivals. Sluggish growth, high unemployment, and repeated load shedding constrained bank lending despite diversified operations across multiple African markets.
Tim Slater, director at Fitch Ratings based in London, noted that South African banks rank among the most sophisticated on the continent with very strong risk management capabilities. Nedbank’s Non Performing Loan (NPL) ratio dropped to 5.1 percent from a year earlier, while Standard Bank reported fewer arrears and slower migration of loans into default, leading to lower impairment charges.
Kenyan regional champions Kenya Commercial Bank at thirteenth and Equity at seventeenth continue featuring in rankings, supported by aggressive expansion into Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Regional operations now account for large shares of profits, reducing dependence on Kenya alone.
However, Kenya’s domestic picture proves costly. The economy grew 4.7 percent in 2024, slower than 5.7 percent in 2023, while sovereign credit rating downgrades increased risks and borrowing costs. Non performing loans across Kenya’s banking sector averaged 16.4 percent by end 2024, compared to a regional average of 7.3 percent according to the European Investment Bank.
Francophone African banks face transition pressures. Moroccan institutions Attijariwafa Bank at nineteenth, BMCE Bank of Africa at twenty fourth, and Banque Centrale Populaire at twenty fifth held positions roughly unchanged from last year. However, 2024 marked a shift with revenues coming more from Morocco than the rest of the continent, driven by major public works ahead of the 2030 World Cup co organization.
Ecobank at eleventh rose four places but faces a turning point with Nedbank’s exit as largest shareholder and anticipated arrival of financier Alain Nkontchou. CEO Jeremy Awori told The Africa Report the group needed a shareholder capable of injecting capital over time to seize growth opportunities.
Coris Bank Holdings experienced the most spectacular drop, falling ten places to twenty eighth. The Burkina Faso based group suffers from deteriorating macroeconomic conditions in the Alliance of Sahel States (AoSS) member country. The credit quality index for Coris Bank fell by more than half from 10.16 in last year’s index to 4.7 this year, primarily due to sharp drops in coverage rates against bad debts.
In March 2025, according to Central Bank of West African States figures, the credit deterioration rate stood significantly higher for AoSS countries at 10.4 percent for Burkina Faso than elsewhere in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region.
Regulators across Nigeria, Kenya, and elsewhere are raising minimum capital requirements, demanding bigger buffers to maintain licenses as currency slumps and credit concentration risks take hold. Sharp currency depreciation in Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe inflated the burden of dollar lending against thin local capital, crimping banks’ ability to write large foreign currency loans.
Mik Kabeya, Vice President and Senior Credit Officer at Moody’s Ratings, noted that South African banks with pan African operations are recognized for expertise in managing cross border banking activities elsewhere in Africa, remaining well equipped to deal with domestic challenges from structurally low economic growth.
The assessment methodology incorporates indicators including return on equity, capital adequacy ratio, non performing loan ratio, operating efficiency, and geographic diversification of assets. A new indicator customer deposits over total deposits was introduced this year, highlighting banks’ reliance on stable retail funding rather than wholesale markets.
