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Despite recording six transactions, the island nation attracted the highest deal value on the continent (excluding South Africa), with private equity inflows surging by 311.3% to $1.25bn in the first nine months of this year—the highest in three years—from $38.9m.
Ten months ago, Ethiopia’s first stock exchange opened to applause. Today, the applause has softened into calculation. Only three listings stand where nine were promised for 2025, raising a bigger question than timing: why isn’t the pipeline filling?
Investec says uneven Basel III rules raise capital costs for African banks. Strong ratios show its concern is not its balance sheet but how global reforms could limit credit and growth.
As Nigeria approaches 2026, a pre-election year, the banking sector is bracing for a complex mix of pressures and prospects that could reshape performance after two years of reform-driven windfalls.
Nigeria’s push for a $1tn economy hinges on expanding fair, transparent digital financing—mobilising its youthful population into productive, credit-enabled growth.
The development comes a few weeks after the mid-sized bank slipped out of the ₦1trn market-capitalisation club.
DealMakers Africa noted that Africa’s most industrialised economy recorded 273 deals worth R1.62trn ($89.5bn) between January and September — a 239.6% surge from the same period in 2024.
The new representative office in Cairo underscores Standard Bank’s long-term view of Egypt as a key node for intra-African commerce and Gulf–Africa connectivity.
The decline marks a rare relief in South Africa’s prolonged unemployment crisis, which has persisted above 30% since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Business activity across major African economies showed mixed performance in October, with Nigeria recording the strongest expansion while South Africa and Egypt slipped deeper into contraction, according to S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data.
African stock markets regained momentum in the third quarter of 2025, with Nigeria, Kenya, and Morocco among the strongest performers.
Kenya’s private sector activity rose to a six-month high in October 2025, driven by new product launches and increased use of discounts and promotional pricing as firms sought to stimulate demand in a gradually recovering economy.
Optasia has become Africa’s first publicly listed fintech, debuting on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2025 and marking a new phase for homegrown digital finance.
A new fintech passport between Ghana and Rwanda lets startups expand across both markets without relicensing — a real test of Africa’s push for borderless finance.
BUA Cement’s after-tax profit surged by 640.8% year-on-year in Q3 2025 — the highest growth among the top three cement makers. Dangote Cement followed with 149.8%, while Lafarge Africa posted 144.1%.
This comes at a time when President Bola Tinubu has introduced sweeping reforms since assuming office in May 2023 to boost investor confidence in Nigeria and achieve his $1trn GDP target by 2030.
According to the latest ‘Where to Invest in Africa’ report by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), the country climbed eight places — from 16th to eighth position — among 31 African economies assessed.
From Nigeria’s Access Holdings and FirstHoldCo to Togo’s Ecobank, Kenya’s Equity Group and KCB, and Tanzania’s CRDB Bank, regional lenders are deepening their footprint in the vast Central African nation — long viewed as too risky for large-scale banking operations.
The conglomerate completed the acquisition of a 100% equity stake in C.H.I. Limited on October 3, 2025, making the beverage and dairy firm a wholly owned subsidiary.
The directive comes at a time when investor sentiment in Ghana’s equities market is slowly improving after years of economic uncertainty.