• Zenith Bank picks Côte d’Ivoire for $90M debut into Francophone Africa, confirming ambition to unlock 14-nation WAEMU/CEMAC passport.
• Late entrant faces Moroccan giants, local titans, but brings 4% ROA, 30% ROE, sub-4% NPL edge.
• CFA stability, sovereign bond reliance, SME credit gap offer both cushion and risk for nimble digital play.

Zenith Bank confirmition of Côte d’Ivoire as the launchpad for its long-anticipated expansion into Francophone Africa, is marking the Nigerian lender’s first real push into a region where its logo has never hung on a door. The group has earmarked roughly $90 Million for the move, according to an interview comment reported by Bloomberg, marking a strong move in markets, where combined net loans to clients is estimated to have reached $92.4 billion in 2024, according to Ecofin Agency Maths.

According to its Chief Strategist, the project imply starting with a subsidiary in Abidjan in 2025, followed “as soon as possible” by Cameroon. Together, the two licenses would give Zenith a passport to operate across the fourteen-country WAEMU and CEMAC blocs, where regulations allow a subsidiary in one member state to branch into all others.

Getting into Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa has long been on the wish list for Nigeria’s second-largest bank by market capitalization and assets. In early 2025, a board director confirmed that the Cameroon exploration process was advancing, albeit slowly. The push is part of fourteen strategic expansion projects presented to investors at the bank’s 2024 annual results. It also reflects a broader trend: at least three large Nigerian lenders, including Access Bank and UBA, are already profitable in these markets and using them as growth platforms.

The entry ticket looks affordable. For Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, the combined minimum capital requirement is approximately $32 to $35 million. That is well within Zenith’s capacity, as the bank ended 2024 with the equivalent of over three billion dollars in cash and cash equivalents. Today’s rules also make expansion far cheaper than in the past. Ten years ago, a bank entering WAEMU or CEMAC would have needed to create a separate subsidiary in each country, multiplying minimum capital requirements and pushing the total cost to something closer to half a billion dollars. The introduction of union-wide passporting frameworks has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry.

“Entering WAEMU and CEMAC once required building a subsidiary in each country — a ticket worth half a billion dollars. Today, a single license in Côte d’Ivoire or Cameroon unlocks the entire bloc for barely $35 million.”

Zenith also enters a more mature market than a decade ago. Digitalization now makes it easier to acquire clients, and once installed, banks can expand rapidly across borders without replicating large upfront investments. This stands in contrast to the earlier period, when physical branch networks had to be built from scratch in each country, creating prohibitive costs.

Zenith’s expansion is also a necessity. WAEMU and CEMAC banks benefit from the currency stability of the CFA franc peg, which contrasts with the naira’s volatility. Local government bonds provide a steady stream of income, helping banks sustain profitability even when private lending is constrained. According to the Commission Bancaire de l’UMOA, the WAEMU banking system expanded solidly in 2024, with total assets growing by just over nine percent to reach seventy-two thousand billion CFA francs, deposits rising by more than seven percent to forty-eight thousand billion CFA francs, and loans up by almost six percent to thirty-seven thousand billion CFA francs. Net profit for the regional sector increased by nearly twelve percent, reaching the equivalent of two billion dollars.

Yet the sector is tightly contested. Moroccan banks such as Attijariwafa, Bank of Africa, and Banque Centrale Populaire together control close to thirty percent of deposits and income. Local WAEMU groups hold 40% to 50%, while Nigerian-linked lenders, such as Ecobank, UBA, and GTBank, account for around 15% to 20%. In total, the top players already dominate nearly 70% of the regional market.

“Moroccan banks dominate with close to 30% of deposits and income, local WAEMU lenders still hold around half, while Nigerian groups remain at the margin. Zenith arrives late to an already crowded room.”

Structural imbalances further shape competition. Credit portfolios remain concentrated in a handful of large private conglomerates, leaving small and medium-sized enterprises with less than fifteen percent of total private credit. Despite recent reforms, top borrowers can still account for up to a third of loan books, exposing banks to idiosyncratic risks. At the same time, sovereign exposures dominate balance sheets. Government securities now represent between twenty and thirty percent of total assets, crowding out private lending. These dynamics leave WAEMU banks profitable but vulnerable to shocks, particularly if sovereign credit ratings deteriorate or if large corporate clients default.

Compared with the WAEMU system, Zenith arrives as a smaller but more profitable player. The Nigerian bank ended 2024 with assets of just under $20 billion, deposits of over $14 billion, and net loans of around $6.5 billion. Its profit after tax stood at nearly seven hundred million dollars. In contrast, the WAEMU system as a whole is approximately six to seven times larger in scale, with assets exceeding one hundred and twenty-eight billion dollars and deposits above eighty-five billion dollars.

Yet in profitability ratios the story is reversed. Zenith delivered a return on assets above 4 percent and a return on equity above 30 percent, while the WAEMU system averaged 1.5 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Non-performing loans account for less than 4% of Zenith’s portfolio, compared with more than 8% in WAEMU. Efficiency is also striking: Zenith’s cost-to-income ratio is below forty percent, while the regional system stands above sixty percent.

This comparison highlights a clear gap. WAEMU is far larger and more diversified in absolute terms, but Zenith delivers stronger profitability and efficiency, supported by digital tools, conservative lending, and rigorous risk management. The contrast reflects different environments: Nigeria’s volatile market allows banks to earn outsized margins, while WAEMU offers stability at the expense of returns.

Zenith outperforms its WAEMU peers in almost every profitability metric: higher returns, fewer bad loans, and lower costs. However, margins are partly due to Nigeria’s volatile, high-yield environment.

Zenith Bank’s late entry is both an opportunity and a risk. The opportunity lies in leveraging its digital banking model, high efficiency, and robust capital base to carve out a niche in a growing but fragmented market. The risk lies in facing entrenched competitors from Morocco, strong local banks, and the structural credit and sovereign-exposure issues that define WAEMU. If Zenith moves quickly, its financial strength and Nigerian experience could allow it to capture a meaningful share of the market over the next decade. But its late arrival means the easy seats are already taken.

Idriss Linge