On January 29, 2026, Fitch Ratings delivered its final verdict on the African Export Import Bank: a two notch downgrade to BB plus, pushing Africa’s largest trade finance institution into junk territory. The agency then withdrew its ratings entirely, citing commercial reasons. Within days, Afreximbank’s management declared the relationship terminated, and the African Union’s peer review body issued an extraordinary public rebuke of Fitch’s methodology.
The sequence marked the most significant confrontation between African financial institutions and Western rating agencies in recent memory. But the dispute over loan classifications and preferred creditor status obscures a more fundamental question: whether the methodologies that govern global credit assessment can accurately evaluate institutions built on different foundations than their Western counterparts.
The evidence suggests they cannot. And the implications extend far beyond Afreximbank’s borrowing costs.
The Numbers in Dispute
At the heart of the confrontation lies a dispute over three numbers: 2.44, 7.1, and 750 million.
Afreximbank reports its non performing loan ratio at 2.44 percent. Fitch calculated 7.1 percent. The gap of 4.66 percentage points represents roughly US$1.4 billion in disputed loan classifications across a US$28 billion portfolio. The difference stems from Fitch’s decision to classify sovereign exposures to Ghana (2.4 percent of the portfolio), South Sudan (2.1 percent), and Zambia (0.2 percent) as non performing loans, despite the absence of any formal default.
The African Peer Review Mechanism, an African Union body established to promote good governance, contested this classification in unusually direct terms. The APRM noted that the borrower states are themselves shareholders in Afreximbank. No sovereign has repudiated its obligations. The loans operate under treaty frameworks, not typical commercial risk principles. Fitch’s treatment of these exposures as comparable to market based commercial loans, the APRM argued, reflects a misunderstanding of the governance architecture of African financial institutions.
The third number, US$750 million, proved decisive. In December 2025, Afreximbank and Ghana announced an agreement in principle regarding a sovereign loan of that amount. The International Monetary Fund stated that the deal aligned with comparability of treatment under Ghana’s official creditor committee. For Fitch, this language confirmed that Afreximbank did not enjoy the preferred creditor status that multilateral development banks typically receive during debt restructurings.
The agency revised Afreximbank’s policy importance risk to medium from low and reassessed its business profile as high risk. The downgrade to junk status followed within weeks.
The Preferred Creditor Question
Whether Afreximbank genuinely enjoys preferred creditor status under international law remains contested. The bank’s establishing treaty, signed by 53 African states, creates a framework of intergovernmental cooperation distinct from typical commercial lending. Afreximbank has consistently maintained that participating in debt restructuring negotiations would violate its treaty obligations.
The June 2025 downgrade triggered an immediate response from the bank. In a statement ten days later, Afreximbank rejected the negative outlook and insisted that its establishing treaty cannot be violated without consequences. The bank stated unequivocally that it was not participating in debt restructuring negotiations related to any of its member countries.
Yet the Ghana agreement, whatever its legal characterization, demonstrated that Afreximbank could not entirely escape the restructuring process affecting its largest sovereign exposures. The IMF’s language about comparability of treatment suggested some accommodation had occurred, even if the bank disputes the implication that it surrendered preferred creditor status.
The legal ambiguity creates genuine analytical challenges. Rating agencies must assess the likelihood of repayment. If a multilateral institution’s loans can be restructured alongside commercial debt, the institution’s credit profile necessarily changes. Fitch’s methodology for multilateral development banks explicitly considers preferred creditor status as a factor in determining policy importance and, by extension, creditworthiness.
The Counter Narrative: Success as Vulnerability
The conventional reading of Fitch’s downgrade frames it as an indictment of Afreximbank’s risk management. But an alternative interpretation warrants consideration: the downgrade may have revealed Afreximbank’s success, not its failure.
Consider the institution’s trajectory. Total assets and contingencies reached US$40.1 billion by the end of 2024, up from US$37.3 billion a year earlier. Shareholders’ funds grew 17 percent to US$7.2 billion. Net income rose 29 percent to US$973.5 million. In 2024 alone, Afreximbank approved more than US$22 billion in financing and disbursed more than US$18.7 billion, its largest annual disbursement ever.
This growth invited scrutiny that smaller, more cautious institutions avoid. An African development bank managing US$5 billion in assets might receive investment grade ratings without controversy. One managing US$40 billion and growing rapidly will face more rigorous examination of its sovereign exposures, funding sources, and governance practices.
Dr. Misheck Mutize, lead expert on credit rating agencies at the African Union, articulated this perspective: Afreximbank’s termination of its Fitch relationship makes a strong statement to rating agencies that they need to reconfigure their approach. He noted that Fitch classified Afreximbank as a baby multilateral institution, a characterization he called prejudicial for a bank founded over three decades ago.
The Methodology Question
Rating agency methodologies for multilateral development banks were developed primarily with institutions like the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, and regional development banks backed by major industrial economies in mind. These institutions share common characteristics: substantial callable capital from highly rated sovereigns, conservative leverage ratios, and unambiguous preferred creditor status established through decades of practice.
Afreximbank operates differently. Its shareholders are predominantly African governments, most of which carry speculative grade ratings themselves. Egypt and Nigeria, the two largest shareholders, both improved to B plus following upgrades in April 2025, but this remains far below investment grade. The average rating of key shareholders accounting for more than half of the bank’s capital stood at B plus following those upgrades.
Fitch’s methodology accounts for this through its support assessment, which considers both shareholders’ capacity and propensity to support the institution. Fitch acknowledged the strong propensity of shareholders to support Afreximbank, demonstrated by ongoing capital injections and dividend reinvestments. But the capacity assessment, constrained by the underlying creditworthiness of African sovereigns, limited the uplift this propensity could provide.
The question is whether this framework adequately captures the dynamics of African development finance. Dr. Yemi Kale, Afreximbank’s Group Chief Economist, argued in June 2025 that flawed and externally biased credit rating models are pushing up the cost of borrowing for African countries, despite their improving macroeconomic outlook. International credit rating agencies, he contended, continue to assess African economies using one size fits all models that do not reflect the structure, risks, or policy frameworks within the continent.
The Moody’s Contrast
The divergence between rating agencies provides instructive contrast. Moody’s downgraded Afreximbank in July 2025, four weeks after Fitch’s initial action, lowering its rating from Baa1 to Baa2. This placed the bank two notches above junk, compared to Fitch’s one notch above junk rating at that time. Moody’s changed its outlook from negative to stable.
Both agencies identified similar concerns: increased exposure to distressed sovereigns, a strategic shift from trade finance toward unsecured sovereign lending, and shrinking sources of funding. Moody’s noted that Afreximbank’s recent issuances, including a US$520 million Samurai bond in late 2024 and a US$303 million Panda bond in early 2025, were modest relative to total funding needs.
Yet Moody’s reached a different conclusion about where to place the bank on the rating scale. The APRM noted this disparity in its January 2026 statement, observing that at the time of Fitch’s downgrade, Moody’s undertook a similar action, and both agencies continue to assign Afreximbank ratings that are broadly comparable and remain within investment grade levels. The implication was clear: Fitch’s decision to push Afreximbank into junk territory reflected analytical choices that other observers did not share.
GCR Ratings, the African rating agency, maintained its BBB rating with a negative outlook as of early 2025, citing the bank’s NPL ratio of 2.4 percent as of the first quarter of 2025 and noting that conservative underwriting, high collateralization, and strong recovery practices underpinned this performance.
The Institutional Response
Afreximbank’s decision to terminate its relationship with Fitch represents an unusual move in global capital markets. Issuers rarely sever ties with major rating agencies, particularly following downgrades, because doing so can signal to investors that the issuer cannot tolerate critical scrutiny.
The bank’s calculation appears to rest on several factors. First, it retains Moody’s coverage at investment grade, providing international investors with a major agency rating. Second, African investors increasingly reference African rating agencies, whose methodologies may better reflect the institutional context in which Afreximbank operates. Third, the cost of maintaining a Fitch relationship that produced progressively negative outcomes likely outweighed the benefits.
The African Credit Rating Agency, backed by the African Union, announced plans in mid 2025 to begin issuing ratings by late 2025 or early 2026. The agency aims to provide what its proponents describe as a homegrown alternative to Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P. Whether it achieves credibility with international investors remains to be seen, but its emergence reflects growing institutional momentum behind the view that existing methodologies do not adequately serve African financial institutions.
The Cost of Capital
The practical consequences of the downgrade extend beyond Afreximbank’s balance sheet. A lower credit rating typically increases borrowing costs, which in turn affects lending rates to the institution’s borrowers. For a trade finance institution serving African governments and businesses, higher funding costs translate directly into more expensive trade finance across the continent.
Reserve Bank of South Africa Governor Lesetja Kganyago, speaking at a G20 Finance Track session in 2025, articulated broader concerns about rating agency projections. He noted that when agencies downgraded South Africa in 2017 and 2020, they projected that debt to GDP would reach 94 percent, with one agency suggesting it might reach 100 percent. Eight years later, he observed, the ratio stood at 76 percent. The agencies, he argued, were wrong.
Dr. Mutize of the African Union estimated that harsh ratings cost Africa US$100 billion in credit lines, reflecting the cumulative impact of higher borrowing costs across the continent’s financial ecosystem. While this figure encompasses all African sovereigns and institutions, not merely Afreximbank, it illustrates the stakes involved when rating methodologies potentially embed structural biases against emerging market institutions.
What the Evidence Shows
Evaluating the merits of Fitch’s downgrade requires distinguishing between analytical judgments and methodological frameworks. On the narrow question of whether Ghana’s debt arrangement raised legitimate concerns about Afreximbank’s preferred creditor status, the evidence supports Fitch’s conclusion that some accommodation occurred. The IMF’s language about comparability of treatment is difficult to reconcile with absolute preferred creditor status.
On the broader question of loan classifications, reasonable analysts can disagree. Fitch applied its standard criteria for identifying non performing loans, which capture loans where repayment appears unlikely regardless of formal default status. Afreximbank applied IFRS 9 accounting standards, which require specific trigger events. Neither approach is inherently wrong; they answer different questions.
The deeper issue is whether the entire framework within which these analytical judgments occur adequately accounts for the distinctive features of African multilateral finance. Afreximbank’s shareholders are its borrowers. Its treaty obligations create different dynamics than commercial lending relationships. Its role in African development finance generates political support that may translate into actual financial support during stress scenarios.
These factors do not make Afreximbank immune from credit risk. But they may mean that standard methodologies systematically underestimate the institution’s resilience while overweighting characteristics, like shareholder creditworthiness, that correlate with broader emerging market risk rather than institution specific creditworthiness.
The Road Ahead
The confrontation between Afreximbank and Fitch will likely influence the broader trajectory of African development finance in several ways.
First, it accelerates institutional momentum behind African rating alternatives. The African Credit Rating Agency’s launch gains significance not merely as a competitor to established agencies but as a potential alternative framework for assessing African institutional creditworthiness. Whether international investors ultimately accept such ratings as substitutes for Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch coverage will depend on the new agency’s demonstrated analytical rigor and track record.
Second, it creates pressure on established rating agencies to revisit their methodologies for multilateral development banks, particularly those serving emerging markets. Fitch’s decision to withdraw coverage may reflect a calculation that the reputational costs of the confrontation outweighed the commercial benefits of continued coverage. Other agencies will note this dynamic.
Third, it highlights the importance of preferred creditor status as a credit consideration for development finance institutions. The ambiguity surrounding Afreximbank’s status during Ghana’s restructuring demonstrates that preferred creditor treatment is not automatic but depends on the specific circumstances of each debt crisis and the political dynamics among creditors.
Afreximbank itself appears positioned to weather the immediate aftermath. Its liquidity remains robust, with coverage ratios well above regulatory requirements. Its Moody’s rating remains investment grade. Its shareholder base continues to provide capital through equity raises and dividend reinvestments. The institution’s fundamentals, as documented in its financial statements, do not suggest an institution in distress.
The Larger Stakes
The Afreximbank downgrade illuminates tensions that extend beyond any single institution. Global capital markets rely on rating agencies to provide standardized assessments of credit risk. Those assessments shape the cost and availability of capital for governments, corporations, and development institutions worldwide. When the methodologies underlying those assessments systematically disadvantage particular categories of institutions, the effects compound across economies and over time.
Africa’s trade finance gap, estimated at over US$100 billion annually, reflects in part the elevated cost of capital that African institutions face in global markets. That cost is not solely a function of underlying credit risk. It incorporates the methodological choices embedded in rating frameworks, the historical relationships between rating agencies and emerging market institutions, and the credibility deficits that African institutions face when their self assessments diverge from external evaluations.
The counter intuitive insight from the Afreximbank episode is this: the institution’s success made it more vulnerable to critical scrutiny, not less. Its rapid growth created sovereign exposures that smaller institutions would never accumulate. Its prominence invited methodological examination that less significant players escape. Its willingness to serve African governments during periods of stress, precisely when capital is most needed and risk most acute, generated the very exposures that rating agencies flagged as concerns.
Whether this dynamic can be addressed through revised methodologies, alternative rating frameworks, or simply broader acceptance that development finance institutions operate under different constraints than commercial lenders remains to be determined. What is clear is that the status quo produces outcomes that African institutions increasingly refuse to accept.
Fitch withdrew its ratings. Afreximbank terminated the relationship. The African Union issued its rebuke. These are not merely institutional responses to an analytical dispute. They represent the opening salvos in a longer contest over who defines creditworthiness in African development finance.
Written by Munyaradzi Hoto, a venture strategist and growth advisor with over 15 years of experience scaling B2B technology companies across emerging and developed markets. He is the Founder & Managing Partner at Hoto Ventures and currently serves as Interim Chief Growth Officer at Bound. He has advised VC firms on go-to-market strategy, raised over $100M in capital, and led multiple successful exits.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Southern African Times. The information provided is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice.
