- Mauritius Commercial Bank will deploy $1 billion over four years to support trade finance across Africa.
- The initiative aims to boost intra-African trade and strengthen regional value chains.
- The commitment comes as Africa faces a trade finance gap estimated at up to $92 billion.
Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), a Mauritius-based banking and financial services group, announced On 28 May it said it would make $1 billion available over the next four years to support trade finance across Africa.
Through this initiative, the Group aims to deepen its participation in the continent's trade flows and support economic transformation driven by greater market integration.
According to the MCB, the funding package will include credit facilities as well as non-funded trade finance instruments, such as letters of credit, confirmed letters of credit, unbilled bills and guarantees. The program is designed to support both intra-African trade and commercial exchanges between African economies and international markets.
The overarching goal is to improve access to trade finance for businesses involved in regional and global commerce while helping to strengthen African value chains.
Intra-African trade at the core
MCB Group Chief Executive Officer Thierry Hébraud said intra-African trade remains a key growth driver for the continent's economies. According to him, the new financing package reflects the group’s commitment to supporting the financing needs of African companies while contributing to broader economic integration efforts.
As of December 2025, MCB operated banking subsidiaries in Seychelles, Madagascar, Reunion and the Maldives. The group also maintains representative offices in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and France, allowing it to support business-related financial transactions in multiple markets. The announcement comes as trade finance activity continues to account for a growing share of intra-African trade.
According to the African Development Bank's 2025 Trade Finance reportPublished on 28 May Intra-African trade represented 34% of all trade financed by banks between 2020 and 2024. This increased by 89% compared to the period 2011-2019.
Financial gap persists
Despite that progress, access to trade finance remains a major challenge across the continent. The report estimates Africa's unmet demand for trade finance in 2024 to be between $74 billion and $92 billion. At the low end of that range, the financing gap stood at 5.4% of the continent's total merchandise trade last year.
During the presentation of the report, Anthony Simpasa, Director of the African Development Bank's Department of Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research, said interventions by multilateral development banks, governments, export credit agencies and international banks helped reduce the trade finance gap by about 10% between 2019 and 2024.
Without those interventions, the annual shortfall over the 2020–2024 period would have exceeded $100 billion. The report also highlights the declining role of commercial banks in financing African trade. Between 2020 and 2024, commercial banks financed an average of 23% of the continent's total trade, down from 40% during the period 2011-2019.
Limited access to foreign exchange liquidity has emerged as a major constraint. Between 2020 and 2024, 36% of banks identified lack of foreign currency funding as the main obstacle to expanding their trade finance activities.
Chamberlain Moco