The African banking sector is in full boiling

The African banking sector is in full boiling. "In Benin campaign, a new house two is a Bank and can be seen a mobile transmitter every 100 metres", jokes the Lionel Zinsou, President of PAI Partners business banker. Voluntarily caricature image summarizes it only a background blade at work South of the Sahara: banks go to the front of a growing popular potential clientele, and the alliance with the digital revolution and mobile telephony provides unsuspected horizons until shortly. At the other end of the continent, just three years ago, an event had already shaken the spirits. Entry height of 20 of the Chinese ICBC, the first global capitalization, in Standard Bank of South Africa, the largest bank in Africa, forced to open their eyes: the banking in Africa market was more an exotic, but the "serious".

"It is one of the fastest emerging banking markets of the world", already felt PricewaterhouseCoopers before a global financial crisis that has little directly affected a sector still protected global financial toxicities. Mergers, acquisitions, removals and new settlements, with especially for epicentres Nigeria, West Africa or an English-speaking Africa in forced March - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania - modernization, constantly change a landscape promised for a few years to new developments. It speaks of "Wild West" and "new frontier" and the "GBBA" (great battle of the African banks), as some current is dubbed. Because it must be quickly: "positions will be locked in the decade ahead", says an expert.

"A huge banking market is in Africa", noted before the summer Jean-Michel Severino, the former Director General of the Agence française de développement, the release of his book "Africa time". It is the corollary of its impressive demographic growth of based economic emergence on the boom of trade, the effect of training in the sectors of mineral and raw materials and the relocation to the Mainland, all synonyms of a progression income also fuelled by billions of euros of transfers of migrants. The IMF and the commission of the African Nations and provide an average growth of 5.5 to 6 annually from 2011 for sub-Saharan Africa. "Even in doing nothing, African banks would see their business grow", said an expert.

The margins of manoeuvre of retail banking are considerable. The rate of bankarisation of population - often less than 10, the lowest rate of the developing world - gives an idea of the potential. Lack of bank branches to hand in most countries - there just for 50.000 inhabitants-, and of too draconian rules (minimum balance, initial filing, fresh high), 80 of the assets of rural households remain in financial form, the livestock remains a good way to keep its economies on foot The model traditional and very well established the Bank in Africa, often inherited a transfer North-South of universal Bank and "corporate", symbolized by leading players, French, English (Barclays, Standard Chartered) or American (Citigroup), hold a little. "With resources stable without essential products such as loans to the housing or leasing their work summary to finance credits of crop, to play on small volumes and a cheap credit, and to accumulate surliquidités they lent to the central banks", said a banker. "Because of the risk, it is a large gap for SMEs, says Alain the black, Adviser Special Club of the leaders of the African banks, and 80 of this market are not covered during the continent's economic takeoff." " The supply of business services is still not meet, confirms Aude Flogny-Catrisse, head of the division of financial sector of the AFD. It is the issue of the if and the magma of hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the limit of the informal, even afraid to meet with a bank.

The African banking system may be "the most profitable in the world, because the banks are doing simple things: they lend to the right customer with very high margin", as summarized in Proparco, the financial institution of the AFD, the mismatch between Bank and client in economic preemergence proves today patent. Awareness causes "movements deep, especially in West Africa", recognizes the profession, evidence that there is now better to Africa in banking matters.

Significantly, the "war of conquest" is part of African groups who have over the borders and centred with small markets, until then very fragmented. "It's a similar revolution at the end of the State banking systems in the 1980s", emphasize local operators, and essentially "a movement of the Interior, South-South", adds Dhafer Saidane, lecturer at the University of Lille III.

The most spectacular expression is certainly the handful of banks in Nigeria exploded outside their domestic market. In 2005, the Central Bank has forced them for prudential reasons to considerably raise their capital, causing a phenomenon of concentration of the sector (number)

(banks brutally from 89 to 25), giving himself birth "continental size monsters", is a banker of Cotonou. Too big for a Nigeria but economic Mastodon in the region, for Africa, Access Bank, Zenith Bank or First Bank Union are already everywhere in the West African or Central. And they do not stop there.

"More cautious and measured, but large financial motivation", said Sonia Trabelsi, Fitch North Africa, Moroccan banks have done a burst into the area two years ago. Following an aggressive acquisitions strategy to piecemeal, thus, Attijariwafa Bank bought five subsidiaries of the Credit Agricole in West Africa and Central, the BIM in Mali, the CBAO in Burkina Faso and is now the first bank in Senegal. The BMCE, who was seeking a professional operator, it has taken control of the Bank Group of Africa (BOA), a large African Group born in Mali, today present in six countries in Africa in the West, five African countries of the is and the Indian Ocean, in the DRC and France. As the Group Ecobank, from Togo, established in 30 countries and to open an Office in Johannesburg last week, BOA is a symbol of this entrepreneurial pioneer of Pan-African networks. "It was about only, but everyone makes." "We are between 10 and 15 groups of regional and continental stature," said Paul Derreumaux, President of the BOA group. And is not finished, because it still expected of the world. "The Lebanese, Tunisian and Egyptian banks will come," explained on Proparco. Some add the Libya and the India. Internationalised of South Africa banks, which have horizon large emerging countries, "are not yet very comfortable in Africa, out of their traditional zone of influence, but they will come, and this could hurt!", prognostic Paul Derreumaux.

Competition is certainly positive: "Combined with the implementation of the prudential rules, it cleans up the market, leads to the concentration and professionalizes the Sub-Saharan Africa." Training, marketing, financial engineering, everything passes! "And the supply of products already diversified," said an old road of finance in Africa. "Before, they transformed the long saving in short-term employment;" Today, they become short savings in long-term loans: banks in Africa are beginning to do their job! ", like Lionel Zinsou. But this competition is even more harsh that everyone rushes in the first place on the same market niche: the "proximity", by upgrading basic services expected to touch and "loss" economic agents from the smallest of villages. Almost a new profession: "the banker must now pick up the client." "It is a more dynamic, more commercial and more humble approach," confesses the Chairman of the BOA. "There has been a great race to individual customers, via the multiplication agencies, and the introduction of new technologies, such as electronic payment and the"mobile banking"", this magic formula that allows to transfer money and pay its bills through a phone laptop, confirms Alain the black. 70 of African population are equipped with mobile and, certainly, "innovation in this area will come from Africa!", say in chorus professionals. The Kenya shall also be the most sophisticated countries in the world in payment by cell phone. Side businesses, bridges to SMEs tends also to taking credit analysis methods that did not exist in Africa and to microcredit.

Signs of time, the French banks are involved in the movement. Always among the leaders of the French-speaking area, BNP Paribas (102 agencies on six countries) and Société Générale (11 countries, 230 agencies) performed for a few years a "freeze frame", all concentrated that they were on the Eastern Europe and the North Africa, while Credit Agricole put his side under the African door key. Both now claim development plans for a sub-Saharan Africa where their influence is diluted. BNP Paribas currently completes a "strategic plan" in this sense. "We want to regain individuals and share of market in SMEs, by being more incisive in the field of the"mass retail", including through openings of agencies", explains André Chaffringeon, responsible for Mediterranean-Africa of BNP Paribas. The Bank has also already two years of experience in "mobile banking" in Côte d'Ivoire, associated France Telecom in Orange Money, and today launches the experience in Mali. Even approach in Société Générale. Already "Bank more invested in microfinance, or equity, in refinancing", "we planned to launch a project of network of agencies low cost, with a separate brand and simple products in sub-Saharan Africa." "In Senegal, where we have already mounted a system of"mobile banking","any operator", we will lead 2011 experience with several" hard"agencies", explains Jean-Louis Mattei, Director of the international retail bank.

If the "old", as were dubbed them in Africa, is there too