Africa needs international banks – and they need Africa

With the launch of its London office in September, Absa came up with a new slogan: “Proudly African. Truly Global. That’s Absa.” The insistence on the truth of its global nature here almost suggests it is aspirational, at least by comparison to a firm like Barclays, or indeed SocGen.

There is no replacing the on-the-ground knowledge that local operations bring to banks like Absa and SocGen. But in return, the global networks of banks outside Africa can offer access to investors and to hard-currency liquidity, which many African banks cannot achieve on their own.