Awards for Excellence 2017
This year’s winner of best bank in Africa is a marked departure from last year’s. After Equity Bank’s win in 2016, thanks to its dominance in the small and medium-sized enterprise and digital banking sectors, this year we reward Attijariwafa Bank, a financial institution that has long been the best in Morocco and is now asserting its credentials in the rest of Africa.
Under the leadership of Mohamed El Kettani, Attijariwafa had a stunning year of growth, increasing its revenues and assets substantially, as well as its geographical reach, with the well-timed and well-executed acquisition of Barclays Egypt.
Attijariwafa’s expansion into Egypt is especially important. It demonstrates the Moroccan bank’s eagerness to become a pan-African institution and its shrewdness in the selection of the countries that it enters.
The bank had been waiting to enter the Egyptian market for more than four years, when it saw an opportunity in March 2016 in Barclays’ sale of its operations there. The acquisition, agreed with Barclays later that year, marks the start of Attijariwafa’s second phase of expansion in Africa.