Mauritius Commercial Bank has announced it will make $1 billion available over the next four years to support trade finance across Africa. The announcement, made on 28 May 2026, represents one of the more tangible institutional commitments to reducing the structural financing deficit that continues to constrain Africa’s capacity to trade with itself and with the wider world.
The initiative is intended to support economic transformation across the continent by offering tailored solutions and competitive access to trade finance, without perceived risk premiums, and to strengthen African trade corridors in support of clients engaged in value creation journeys across the continent. The funding package will include both credit facilities and non-funded trade finance instruments, among them letters of credit, confirmed letters of credit, avalised bills and guarantees, and is designed to support both intra-African trade and commercial exchanges between African economies and international markets.
Thierry Hebraud, Chief Executive Officer of Mauritius Commercial Bank, said the programme would provide favourable financing for companies involved in intra-African trade and regional value chains, stating that the bank had launched an envelope of $1 billion for the next four years to favour intra-trade financing with specific and favourable conditions for clients developing their intra-trade activity. Hebraud added that the financing package reflected the group’s commitment to supporting African companies’ financing needs whilst contributing to broader economic integration efforts.
The announcement follows a series of commitments in support of MCB Group’s African ambitions, notably the signing of a Letter of Intent with Proparco and African partner banks under the Africa AgriTrade Coalition, as well as the participation of Hebraud in the Africa CEO Forum held in Rwanda in mid-May 2026. The announcement also coincides with the commemoration of Africa Day, celebrated on 25 May.
The timing is not incidental. The programme arrives alongside the publication of the African Development Bank’s 2025 Trade Finance Report, released at the bank’s Annual Meetings in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, which presents a detailed and sobering portrait of where the continent currently stands. The report estimates Africa’s unmet demand for trade finance ranged between $74 billion and $92 billion in 2024, representing approximately 5.4 per cent of the continent’s total merchandise trade. Looking further ahead, the African Development Bank has warned that the trade finance gap could expand to $86.6 billion by 2027, posing risks to imports, manufacturing activity and economic growth, with the warning linked in part to rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, higher global energy prices and tighter international lending conditions.
At least 29 African currencies have depreciated since conflict broke out in the Middle East in February 2026 and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one fifth of global oil supply transits, driving sharp increases in energy and freight costs that translate directly into higher import bills, currency pressures and tightening fiscal space for Africa’s predominantly net oil-importing economies. Higher import costs are, in turn, eroding the perceived creditworthiness of African borrowers in the eyes of international correspondent banks, compressing the supply of trade finance precisely at the moment when demand is intensifying.
The structural story is, however, more complex than the headline deficit suggests. Between 2020 and 2024, intra-African trade accounted for 34 per cent of total bank-intermediated trade, representing an 89 per cent increase above pre-pandemic levels recorded between 2011 and 2019. That shift reflects both the gradual operationalisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area and a broader reorientation of African commercial institutions towards the continent’s own markets. Progress, in other words, is measurable and real, even if it remains far short of what the scale of the continental economy demands.
Against that backdrop, the retreat of commercial banks from African trade finance deserves particular attention. Commercial banks intermediated just 23 per cent of African trade over the 2020 to 2024 period, down from 40 per cent before the pandemic, and rejection rates for trade finance applications remained significantly high, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, at 37 per cent over the same period. Average SME approval rates stood at just 63 per cent, well below broader trade finance approval levels. The contraction is partly a function of de-risking policies adopted by international correspondent banks, a trend that has been documented across multiple African jurisdictions and that disproportionately affects smaller economies and businesses with limited credit history.
Interventions by multilateral development banks, governments, export credit agencies and international banks helped reduce the trade finance gap by nearly 10 per cent between 2019 and 2024. Without those interventions, the annual shortfall would have exceeded $100 billion throughout the 2020 to 2024 period. MCB Group’s $1 billion commitment, whilst modest relative to the scale of the gap, is nonetheless significant as a signal of continental intent from an institution embedded within the Indian Ocean region and increasingly active across African markets. As of December 2025, MCB operated banking subsidiaries in Seychelles, Madagascar, Réunion and the Maldives, and maintained representative offices in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and France.
The broader question, for policymakers, development financiers and the private sector alike, is whether commitments of this nature can catalyse a more systemic response to a financing gap that continues to suppress African industrial capacity, limit the competitiveness of African exporters and slow the pace of regional economic integration. The African Continental Free Trade Area offers the institutional architecture for deeper intra-African commerce. What remains in short supply is the patient, accessible and competitively priced capital that would allow African businesses to take full advantage of it.
