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Article: Building a presence in Africa: faced with increasing competition in their domestic market, Moroccan banks are expanding into poorer states with long-term growth potential.(MOROCCO)
- Article from:
- MEED Middle East Economic Digest
- Article date:
- December 5, 2008
- Author:
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Competitive conditions at home are driving banks based in one of Africa's most developed countries, Morocco, to invest in some of the continent's poorest states. Mali, for example, is among the world's 10 poorest nations, but that has not deterred Morocco's largest finance house, Attijariwafa Bank, from investing in the country as a market of long-term promise and potentially lucrative revenues.
On 7 November, it completed the $80m takeover of Banque Internationale du Mali (BIM), after a hard-fought bidding round with rivals such as France's Societe Generale (SocGen), Cote d'Ivoire's United Bank for Africa, Togo-based Ecobank and, not least, fellow Moroccan bank ...