Deepening political, social, and cultural ties opens a fertile financial market.
Africa’s position as a corridor for capital, trade, and investment is capturing the attention of Middle Eastern banks.
For decades, the continent was a preserve of Western lenders. Today, most have exited due to stringent regulatory requirements in their home markets, leaving Africa’s homegrown banks to fill the void. But the dynamics are changing again as Gulf banks venture into Africa to exploit deepening ties cutting across political, socio-economic, cultural, and religious spheres.
The influx into Africa is striking. In August, Emirates NBD Bank PJSC made a statement of its determination to control the United Arab Emirates-Egypt corridor by acquiring HSBC Egypt’s retail business. Emirates NBD Group CEO Shayne Nelson called the acquisition an important milestone in the execution of the bank’s regional growth strategy.
“The transaction strengthens our presence and supports our ambition to continue growing our customer franchise,” he said.
Emirates NBD, which boasted $317 billion in assets in 2025, is not the only Middle East bank that is bullish on Africa. First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC (FAB), the biggest in the Middle East-North Africa region by assets at $382.2 billion with a presence in 20 markets including Egypt and Libya, announced earlier this year that it would open its first sub-Saharan representative office in Lagos, and in July said it would be applying for a banking license in South Africa.
Other lenders are strengthening their footing in Africa through targeted investments and collaborative ventures. Among them is Qatar National Bank QPSC (QNB), which controls a 20.1% stake in Ecobank, the leading pan-African bank with a presence in 35 markets. Ecobank posted a $423 million profit before tax in the first half of this year.
Bahrain’s Al Baraka, the UAE’s Mashreq Bank, and Dubai-based Soren Investment Co., which last year purchased a controlling stake of 42.8% in Kenya’s Gulf African Bank, to are also making forays into the continent.
Tighter Connections
The scramble by Gulf lenders is not a fluke. They see a market awash with opportunities cutting across Islamic banking, international payments, capital flows due to growing trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and remittances and labor ties.
Bilateral trade between the Middle East and Africa stood most recently at $260 billion, while FDI exceeded $100 billion over the decade from 2012 to 2022. The Gulf Cooperation Council states are also a major source of remittances to Africa. Last year, these amounted to $28.3 billion, dwarfing the $1.1 billion the continent received from the GCC in development assistance.
Another area of opportunity is Islamic finance, cutting across Shariah-compliant banking, bonds, insurance (Takaful), Islamic fintechs, among other businesses. While Africa is home to 600 million Muslims, its contribution to the global pool of Islamic financial services was just $30.7 billion in 2025, or a mere 0.7% of the global total of $4.4 trillion. Even in Senegal, where 94% of the population is Muslim, Islamic banking assets accounted for a mere 8.3% of total banking assets in 2024.
“Islamic finance offers a compelling blueprint for strengthening regional financial resilience and economic integration,” said Suleiman Walhad, president of the Horn of Africa States research group.
John Njiraini is a contributing writer based in Kenya.