ARMA Insights
Africa's trade finance gap stands at $120 billion annually. Behind this staggering number lies a fundamental challenge: the shortage of professionals equipped with practical trade finance knowledge to serve the continent's businesses. After working with financial institutions across 15 African markets, we identified a recurring pattern.
ARMA Insights
When a mid-sized Kenyan bank lost over $15 million to fraud in 2023, the subsequent investigation revealed a troubling pattern: the board had approved a high-risk strategy without fully understanding the control environment. The board risk committee met quarterly but struggled to ask the right questions. Sound familiar?
ARMA Insights
Every week at ARMA, we receive calls from talented entrepreneurs across Africa who share a frustratingly similar story: strong businesses, proven track records, growing markets, yet no access to capital. On the other side, we hear from lenders and investors who struggle to find "bankable" SMEs despite knowing
ARMA Insights
Africa faces a $277 billion annual climate finance gap. While global green bond issuance exceeds $500 billion annually, African issuances remain under 1% of this total. Yet the continent bears disproportionate climate impacts while holding immense renewable energy potential, sustainable infrastructure needs, and growing institutional investor interest. The disconnect is
Originally published April 2021, republished here as part of ARMA's continuity record. The working capital pressures the original piece described in the COVID-era have settled into a permanent feature of African corporate balance sheets. Supply chain finance (SCF) emerged from the 2008-09 global financial crisis as
Originally published April 2018, republished here as part of ARMA's continuity record. The argument has only become more urgent. A few years ago, ARMA worked with FSD Africa and IPC GmbH on a continent-wide credit-skills assessment. The headline finding was simple and uncomfortable: most African credit
Originally published April 2021, republished here as part of ARMA's continuity record. The opportunity it describes has only sharpened in the five years since. When African leaders came together to sign the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement in Kigali in 2018, the continent was engulfed in
When the Central Bank of Kenya introduced climate risk disclosure requirements in 2024, many commercial banks discovered a troubling reality: their Enterprise Risk Management frameworks, despite appearing comprehensive on paper, could not answer basic questions about portfolio exposure to drought risk or temperature impacts on agricultural lending. That was not
The conventional financial inclusion playbook in Africa has been mobile money plus microfinance. Both have done remarkable work. Both have run into the same ceiling: they extend transactional access without extending working capital that scales with the business. The SME that needs $40,000 to fulfil a confirmed buyer purchase
Development finance institutions - IFC, AfDB, EIB, FMO, Proparco, Norfund, DEG, BII - have quietly raised the bar on what they expect from African bank boards over the last 24 months. The shift is not in the headline ESG and impact requirements. It is in the board effectiveness assessment that now sits
Correspondent banking de-risking is the slow-burn structural threat to African finance that does not get the headlines it should. Global banks have been shedding nostro relationships with African counterparts at a steady rate since 2014, and the 2024 BIS data confirms the trajectory has not reversed. For a
The 2022 drought across the Horn of Africa drove non-performing loans in agricultural portfolios up by 200 to 400 basis points across multiple Tier 2 lenders we have worked with. The 2024 East African floods did similar damage, in different counties, to different crops, in the same loan books.