Africa’s major banks have reported their 2025 full-year results, and the numbers reveal a continent divided. East and Southern African lenders — led by Equity Group Holdings, Standard Bank, and KCB — posted record or near-record profits as higher interest rates fattened net interest margins and regional expansion delivered. Nigerian banks face a different story: a normalisation squeeze from naira devaluation, rising operating costs, and a credit environment that leaves full-year results for the sector’s biggest names still pending at the Nigerian Exchange as of late March 2026.
The continental bifurcation is not accidental. It reflects structural differences in currency stability, monetary policy transmission, and the pace at which banks in each sub-region built diversification buffers in the years before 2025. The results season provides one of the clearest annual readings of where African banking strength genuinely lies — and where the stress points are accumulating.
Standard Bank: The Anchor Holds
Standard Bank Group reported headline earnings of R49.2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2025, an increase of 11 percent on the prior year, with a return on equity of 19.3 percent — comfortably above its cost of equity. The group’s Rest of Africa division contributed approximately 41 percent of total group earnings, a figure that underlines the degree to which Standard Bank has become a genuinely pan-African institution rather than a South African bank with regional branches.
The ROE performance is significant context. South African banking benchmarks have been squeezed by sluggish domestic GDP growth, load-shedding legacy costs, and a consumer lending environment that has remained cautious. Standard Bank’s ability to sustain ROE above 19 percent in that environment reflects the earnings diversification that its Africa Regions business provides.
“The consistency of our performance across multiple markets and business lines demonstrates that our strategy is working,” Standard Bank Group CEO Sim Tshabalala said at the FY2025 results presentation.
The Rest of Africa business covers 20 countries including Angola, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. It is this geographic spread — across both oil exporters and non-oil economies, across East and West Africa — that provides the natural hedge Standard Bank has built over two decades of continental expansion.
Equity Group: The Record Stands
Equity Group Holdings delivered the most striking headline result in this reporting cycle: profit after tax of KSh 75.5 billion for FY2025, a 55 percent increase year-on-year and the largest annual profit in Kenyan corporate history at the time of reporting. The result was powered by a combination of strong Kenyan core performance, an extraordinary year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (+58 percent contribution growth), and the maturation of Equity’s pan-African build-out across six countries outside Kenya.
Regional operations now account for approximately 50 percent of Equity Group’s total profit — a threshold the group crossed meaningfully this year and one that signals a structural transformation from a Kenyan bank to a genuinely regional financial institution.
The DRC number demands particular attention. Equity BCDC — the bank’s DRC subsidiary, formed after the 2020 merger with Banque Commerciale du Congo — has become one of the most significant financial institutions in Central Africa. A 58 percent profit growth in a market of over 100 million people, largely unbanked and with vast natural resource revenues flowing through the formal economy, represents a structural position that is difficult for competitors to replicate quickly.
“Our digital and agency banking model is proving that you can serve large, dispersed populations profitably at scale,” Equity Group Holdings CEO James Mwangi said, commenting on the pan-African expansion results.
KCB Group: Digital Is the Story
KCB Group reported net profit of KSh 68.4 billion for FY2025, an 11 percent increase year-on-year. The headline growth rate is more modest than Equity’s, but the operational data underneath it is arguably the most revealing of any bank in this round-up: 99 percent of KCB’s transaction volumes are now processed through digital channels. That figure — essentially full digital penetration of transaction activity — reflects a decade of investment in mobile and agency banking infrastructure and sets a benchmark for what digitally mature African retail banking looks like.
Non-performing loan ratios at KCB declined in 2025, a positive credit quality signal after several years of elevated NPLs related to the stress in Kenya’s real estate sector and SME lending during the post-COVID period. The improvement in asset quality, combined with steady profit growth, positions KCB as one of the better-managed large banks on the continent from a risk management perspective.
“Our digital transformation is now delivering commercial results, not just operational efficiency,” KCB Group CEO Paul Russo said at the annual results briefing. “Ninety-nine percent digital transaction volume is the outcome of sustained investment — and it positions us well for the next growth phase.”
KCB’s pan-African presence — covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan, Ethiopia (via National Bank of Kenya), and DRC — gives it a footprint comparable to Equity’s but with a somewhat different market mix, weighted more heavily toward conflict-affected and frontier economies in the east and northeast of the continent.
FirstRand: The South African Resilience Test
FirstRand reported earnings growth of approximately 10 percent for its year ended June 30, 2025 — a June year-end that places it slightly outside the strict calendar-year comparison with the East African banks, but relevant as South Africa’s second-largest banking group. Return on equity held at 20.2 percent, among the highest of any major African bank.
FNB Africa, FirstRand’s pan-African retail banking franchise, grew at 5 percent in reported currency terms and 8 percent in constant currency — with the reported/constant gap reflecting rand weakness against several of the currencies in which FNB Africa earns revenue. The constant currency growth rate is the more relevant operational indicator, and 8 percent represents solid growth in markets where FirstRand is building from a smaller base than Standard Bank’s established network.
RMB, FirstRand’s wholesale and investment banking arm, maintained strong performance in infrastructure financing and natural resources advisory — sectors that continue to generate transaction flow in Southern and East Africa as DFI-backed energy transition projects move to financial close.
Nigeria: Waiting for the Full Numbers
Zenith Bank, Access Holdings, and Guaranty Trust Holding Company — Nigeria’s three largest banking groups by assets — had not filed their FY2025 audited results with the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) as of March 20, 2026. Nigerian banks operate on a December 31 year-end, and the late filing reflects both the regulatory review timeline at the Central Bank of Nigeria and the complexity of presenting audited results during a period of significant FX and impairment adjustments.
Available nine-month data (Zenith) and half-year results (Access) suggest that Nigerian banks navigated 2025 with profit growth in naira terms, driven by elevated interest rates boosting net interest income. However, S&P Global has noted that the Nigerian banking sector faces a normalisation squeeze as the extraordinary NIMs of 2023–2024 (which benefited from the naira devaluation and subsequent rate hikes) begin to compress as monetary policy stabilises.
The Central Bank of Nigeria’s December 2025 Macroeconomic Outlook shows the sector’s NPL ratio approached 7 percent for the industry — above the CBN’s 5 percent regulatory threshold, though several large banks have maintained NPL ratios below the sector average through active credit management and loan sales. That same CBN review flagged SME lending as the primary stress segment.
BETAR will update the comparison table below when Zenith, Access, and GTCO file their FY2025 audited results with the NGX, expected by early April 2026.
Fintech vs. Banks: The Payments Battleground
Across all four sets of results, mobile and digital payment volume data tells a consistent story: African banks are not ceding the payments layer to fintech challengers. KCB’s 99 percent digital transaction rate is the headline number, but Equity’s agency banking network, Standard Bank’s digital retail penetration in South Africa, and MTN MoMo’s continued inability to displace bank-led mobile money in the East African markets all point to an incumbent banking sector that has invested enough in digital infrastructure to remain competitive.
MTN MoMo is the most credible non-bank challenger in this space, with over 70 million active users across 16 markets (BETAR analysis: BETA-366). But the banks are moving too — Equity Tech, the group’s standalone technology subsidiary, is developing embedded finance infrastructure that could shift how third-party apps access Equity’s balance sheet. That product strategy is designed precisely to compete with the platform model that MTN and M-Pesa have built.
The Continental Scorecard
| Bank | Year-End | Profit Growth | ROE | Pan-Africa Revenue | NPL Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Bank | Dec 2025 | +11% (R49.2bn HE) | 19.3% | ~41% of earnings | Stable |
| Equity Group | Dec 2025 | +55% (KSh 75.5bn PAT) | ~25% | ~50% of profit | Improving |
| KCB Group | Dec 2025 | +11% (KSh 68.4bn) | ~21% | ~30% of profit | Improving |
| FirstRand | Jun 2025 | +10% | 20.2% | ~15% (FNB Africa) | Stable |
| Zenith Bank* | Dec 2025 | TBC (9M: strong) | TBC | <20% | Elevated (~7% sector) |
| Access Holdings* | Dec 2025 | TBC (H1: positive) | TBC | ~25% (West Africa) | Elevated |
*FY2025 audited results pending. Data from 9M/H1 2025 results and analyst estimates. Table will be updated when full-year NGX filings are available.
What the Numbers Reveal
The 2025 results season confirms three structural realities about African banking. First, geographic diversification within Africa — not just pan-African brand presence but genuine multi-country earnings — is the most reliable risk buffer available to large African banks. The banks that perform best, consistently, are those that have built earnings streams in multiple sub-regions with different economic cycles.
Second, the digital investment made by East African banks over the past decade is now showing up as competitive advantage in both cost efficiency and market penetration. The 99 percent digital transaction rate at KCB is not a vanity metric; it represents a structural cost advantage over banks still running significant branch and agent cash infrastructure.
Third, Nigerian banking normalisation is real but not a crisis. The extraordinary profit growth of 2023–2024, driven by naira devaluation-amplified revenues and high policy rates, is compressing. Banks that built genuine franchise value — in retail deposits, SME lending infrastructure, and payments rails — will distinguish themselves from those that simply rode the macro wave. The FY2025 audited results, when they land, will be the clearest read yet on which Nigerian banks have built durable businesses and which are facing a harder grind.
— Business Reporter, BETAR.africa
