Luanda, Sept. 12, 2025 (Lusa) - The Angolan government on Friday argued that banks should leverage their profitability to drive inclusive growth in the country and urged operators to assist the authorities in reducing the number of businesses that operate outside the legal framework.
"Banks should leverage their profitability to drive inclusive growth, not just reflect public debt or exchange rate volatility. Angolan banks now face the challenge of proving that their results are not limited to the financial sphere, but translate into tangible benefits for the real economy," said Angola's Secretary of State for Finance and the Treasury, Ottoniel dos Santos.
According to the minister, who was speaking at the opening of the 15th Banca conference, on the theme ‘The Value and Profitability of Banks in Angola’, in 2024, Angolan commercial banking profits grew by 82%, "reflecting, in large part, interest income and the value enhancement of public debt securities, foreign exchange gains and foreign exchange revaluations" caused by the depreciation of the national currency.
The combined profit of the 19 banks that disclosed their 2024 accounts grew to 905.6 billion (€884 million) compared to 497.6 billion kwanzas (€464 million) recorded in 2023, according to calculations by Expansão disclosed at this forum.
These results reveal "efficiency and regulatory rigour", but also, the secretary of state noted, pose a challenge: "in a country growing at 4% per year, how should we interpret bank profits that are growing twenty times faster? What risks — or what opportunities — does this gap reveal?" he asked.
For Ottoniel dos Santos, who was speaking on behalf of the minister of finance, the challenges facing Angolan banks do not translate into limiting their profitability, "but rather into questioning their real impact".
"To what extent do profits reflect the expansion of productive credit? To what extent does profitability translate into inclusion, dynamism and innovation?" he asked again, insisting that Angolan banks should transform their profitability into a lever for inclusive growth.
The state, he continued, "remains committed to fiscal consolidation, strengthening the business environment, improving guarantee mechanisms, fostering risk-sharing instruments and promoting platforms that bring banks closer to entrepreneurs".
According to the minister, the Angolan authorities are aware that many projects do not receive credit "due to insufficient structuring," arguing that banks need to promote advisory and financial training services for micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.
He also believes that Angolan banks "must be more than just financiers: they must be partners in development, with the capacity to structure proposals, mitigate risks and support businesses that have not yet been created - but which can transform the country's economic fabric, as well as assist the Executive in implementing the process of reducing informality in the economy".
(Informality in the economy refers to activities and employment that operate outside the government's legal and regulatory framework, such as the lack of company registration, failure to issue invoices, non-payment of taxes and failure to guarantee workers' rights).
"All this requires dialogue, responsibility and a shared strategic vision," he said during his speech at the opening of this forum promoted in Luanda by the economic newspaper Expansão.
Ottoniel dos Santos also argued that banks that know how to align their profitability with economic utility and social cohesion "will be rightly valued - not only by the market, but by society," noting that banking supervision has gained density, independence and greater effectiveness with the new Angolan central bank law.
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