The quality of international banking services toward African countries has never been impeccable but, for some months now, it seems that the glitches are growing.

Those glitches are not always the fault of receiving African banks because the chain has many intermediaries.

From transfer that takes weeks to reach destinations to transfer fees that are sometimes 10X higher depending on the banks, Our agency experiences it daily.

There are even funds that simply disappear. For instance, €381 sent on October 8, 2018, via Crédit Suisse to SCB Cameroun has not yet reached the destination. Another €1,799 sent from Crédit Suisse to Banque Atlantique Côte d’Ivoire on December 21, 2018, never reached the destination.

In those two cases, the sender, as well as the receiving banks, claim no responsibility and, the client’s only option is to pay the sender bank for research that could determine where the fund was blocked.

To measure the extent and frequency of such incidents, we are inviting our readers who use African banks to reach out to us if they have experienced such things by providing the details (sender bank, receiving bank, dates, funds and eventually, the steps taken to solve the issue)

Testimonies can be sent to enquete@agenceecofin.com. They will be processed with attention and a summary as accurate as possible will be made.

Ecofin Agency thanks all those who will participate in advance.