Seven banks in Angola and Mozambique are on the list of the 100 largest banks in Africa by capital, put together by African Business magazine, and published in the October issue.

The list is led by Standard Bank of South Africa, a country whose banks take five of the top ten places in the ranking, the other four being Barclays Africa, FirstRand, Nedbank and Investec South Africa.

The other five places in the top 10 places are taken by three Moroccan banks, one from Nigeria and one from Algeria.

On 31 December, 2013, Standard Bank had share capital of US$12.998 billion, while the first in the list from Angola – BESA – had capital of US$1.022 billion and the only one from Mozambique had capital of US$403 million.

The first bank from a Portuguese-speaking country to appear is in 26th place, Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA), which is currently in a difficult situation following the division of Portugal’s Banco Espírito Santo into two institutions – one with good assets and other with toxic assets.

After BESA on the list are Banco Angolano de Investimentos (29th place), Banco de Poupança e Crédito (32nd), Banco BIC (41st), Banco de Fomento Angola (42nd), Banco Millennium Angola (74th) and Banco Privado Atlântico (77th), all from Angola.

The only bank from Mozambique included in this list – Millennium bim – comes in 57th place. (macauhub/AO/MZ)