North Africa remains Africa's dominant banking region by a considerable margin, accounting for more than 46% of all the capital in the continental rankings.
Egypt and Morocco provide most of that strength, particularly in the upper reaches of our table. The sheer scale of Egyptian banking is striking. National Bank of Egypt has assets of $160.1bn, while Banque Misr has $82.5bn. Together they have a balance sheet larger than the banking sectors of many entire African countries.
There are seven Egyptian banks in our regional Top 20 North African Banks table, with eight from Morocco, four Algerian and just one Tunisian. The Egyptian economy has been subject to painful reforms and rapid price rises, with annual inflation reaching 28.3% in 2024, but growth has recovered. The IMF said that GDP growth reached 4.4% in 2025, up from 2.4% in 2024, and forecasts 4.2% growth this year.
Egypt's banks have benefited from very high nominal interest rates but they still face a difficult operating environment, including currency volatility and large government financing requirements.
Originally published by African Business.