Corporate treasurers in Africa have often faced greater challenges than those elsewhere in getting access to capital. There are several initiatives in place to tackle this, such as Standard Bank's agreement to offer trade finance solutions jointly with DP World Trade Finance in a May 2023 deal that will see the firms co-lend and share risk on deals made via its platform across Africa.
African corporates are also keen to expand their roster of banking partners, according to Manish Kohli, global head of global payments solutions at HSBC, who says the bank is seeing many clients from North Africa expanding beyond the region.
However, the African Development Bank Group’s Capital Markets Development Trust Fund notes that the total value of Africa’s debt capital markets is less than 3% of the continent’s GDP.
In addition, most African capital markets remain underdeveloped and shallow, with few listed securities and financial products, while local-currency corporate bond markets struggle to gain traction and depth.
Some progress is being made. The Africa financial markets index published by South African multinational banking and financial services conglomerate Absa in November 2023 reported that most of the member countries of the African Financial Markets Initiative (AFMI) had improved their overall score.
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