The African Business Review Jan-Feb 2014 | Page 16

700%
600%
500%
400%
300%
200%
100%
0%

2006

2007

2008

2009

First Bank Of Nigeria
Ecobank
Société Générale
Barclays

2010

2011
Zenith International Bank
Access Bank
BNP Paribas
Average for banks in sub-Saharan Africa

Source: Author calculations based on the Bankscope database (2011) and banks’ annual reports.

Figure 3 : Growth of the main banks in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa) : local banks vs foreign banks

scale, and with very little capacity for innovation. Co-existing alongside
these small-scale banks are the large banks, limited in number and
operating in an oligopoly, imposing high margins on captive markets
with little incentive to improve their operating performance. Ghana
offers a good illustration of this situation: despite having a large number
of banks (26), for total assets of less than €10 billion, the indica