A new ranking of Africa's top 300 finance champions has identified South Africa's FirstRand Group and Kenya's KCB Group as the continent's leading financiers of businesses and households. The ranking, published by Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, assesses how effectively lenders channel their financial resources into the real economy. FirstRand took the top spot, followed by KCB Group in second place and Côte d'Ivoire's AFG Bank in third among 22 pan-African banking groups.
The ranking considers various factors, including credit intensity, growth in outstanding loans, conversion of deposits into loans, and geographical footprint. Across the 22 banking groups, credit intensity averaged 45 percent, which is lower than the estimated 60 to 75 percent range for commercial banks globally. This suggests that African banking groups allocate a relatively smaller proportion of their assets to lending. The report provides a broader assessment of the contribution banks make to financing economic activity.
KCB Group's second-place position reflects its 16.3 percent growth in net loans in 2025, almost three times Kenya's national market average of 5.9 percent. The lender operates in seven countries, combining regional expansion with increased financing. Côte d'Ivoire's AFG Bank recorded the fastest loan growth among the 22 institutions, with net loans expanding by 47.58 percent in 2025. AFG Bank's credit intensity stood at 40.63 percent, with $3.64 billion in net customer loans.
Nigerian banking groups, however, fared poorly in the ranking. Zenith Bank, First HoldCo, UBA Group, and GTCO occupied the nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second positions, respectively. Access Bank Group ranked seventeenth, with loan growth of 16.04 percent in 2025. The report cites mandatory reserve requirements and concerns about rising defaults as factors encouraging caution among Nigerian lenders.
South African lenders accounted for four of the top ten positions, with Absa Group, Nedbank, and Standard Bank ranking fifth, ninth, and among the top ten, respectively. Morocco had three representatives: Attijariwafa Bank, BOA-BMCE, and Groupe BCP, all recording loan-to-deposit ratios above 80 percent. Gabon's Groupe BGFIBank also made the top ten, ranking tenth with credit intensity of 50.77 percent and a loan-to-deposit ratio of 92.42 percent.
Julien Wagner, director of special content, partnerships, and media diversification at Jeune Afrique Media Group, emphasized the importance of pan-African banking groups acting as engines of growth. He noted that these groups must channel capital and financial services into the economies in which they operate. The ranking aims to assess this mission and provide a different measure of banking performance.
The new ranking joins the publication's existing rankings of the Top 200 Banks, Top 100 Insurers, and best-performing pan-African banking groups. The findings highlight a challenge for Nigerian lenders and identify a gap in their performance. The report's authors hope that this ranking will encourage banks to prioritize financing economic activity and contribute to the growth of African economies.
Key points
- FirstRand and KCB Group top Africa's bank lenders in a new continental ranking.
- Nigerian banking groups rank low in the ranking, citing caution due to mandatory reserve requirements and rising defaults.
- The ranking assesses how effectively lenders channel their financial resources into the real economy.
