While the economic repercussions of Covid-19 are already tangible, financial institutions remain mostly profitable.

In the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, in March, the rating agency Fitch hastily improvised a most summary ranking. Three colors to classify the likely resilience of African banking sectors in the face of the emerging economic crisis: green to mark stability, yellow for losses, red for a crisis situation.

"It was a way for us to understand a rapidly changing situation," recalls Mahin Dissanayake, head of analysis of sub-Saharan African banks in the agency's London office. This unofficial classification, much less sophisticated than his usual rating system, in any case enabled him to reach a worrying conclusion: "Initially, we had a few countries in green, but very quickly there were none left. . According to this analysis of the start of the health crisis, it was all of French-speaking Africa that was tinted yellow by Fitch.

THE YEAR IS LOOKING TO BE EXCEPTIONALLY TROUBLED

These concerns soon materialized. Even though the first cases of Covid-19 were not declared in the Maghreb until February 25, and in West and Central Africa on March 11, the banking results for the first quarter already revealed a severe inflection. The Moroccan Attijariwafa Bank, the leading establishment in French-speaking Africa, announced on March 31 a cost of risk up 82.5% and a net profit down 23.8%, to 1.1 billion dirhams (100 million euros). euros). Results “marked by the first impacts of the crisis”, explained the bank, suggesting that the worst was yet to come.