Nigeria topped South Africa, Kenya and Egypt as the continent attracted $4.9bn billion in investment deals, accounting for the lion share compared to funds received by other countries on the continent.
The $4.9 billion was secured in more than 480 deals which was led by Nigeria on the country segment, and Financial Technology (Fintech) on the market category.
According to African Investment Report 2021 by Briter Bridges, which used data sourced from investors, the deals were divided into disclosed funding of $4.65 billion, and undisclosed deals of which accounted for $300 million.
This brought the total investment deals into Africa to $4.9 billion according to African Investment Report 2021 by Briter Bridges, which used data sourced from investors.
According to the report, Fintechs accounted for 62 percent of the total funding, while 8 percent and 7 percent of the capital went to health & biotech and logistics respectively.
A further breakdown showed that investors concentrated their funds on payments, solar home kits, assets financing, Point of Sales (POS), banking, while most of the deals were recorded by payment, transfers, banking, medical delivery, B2B commerce, and professional skill development amongst others.
Meanwhile, Nigerian businesses as at November 2021 secured N35.3 trillion from Nigerian banks according to data from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The data titled ‘Money Statistics’ showed the credit secured by the private sector was a 33.7 percent increase when compared to N26.4 trillion in the corresponding period of 2020.
CBN data also showed that the net domestic credit rose YoY by 36 percent to N48.3 trillion in November 2021 from N35.5 trillion in 2020.
Speaking on the increase in private credit, a member of CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee, Adenikinju Festus, said even non-bank financial institutions contributed significantly to the rise in aggregate credit to the economy.
According to him, “the report on the Other Financial Institutions (OFIs) showed that they contributed significantly to aggregate consumer credit. Other Financial Institutions granted 22.39 million facilities to 9.23 million loan beneficiaries out of which 69.26 thousand were corporate consumers. Overall, OFIs contributed an additional N2.79 trillion or 10.62 per cent to banking sector credit in the past one year.”
Ahmad Aishah, a member of the committee, also said that the improvements in the macro economy were propelled by a resilient financial system which channeled significant credit to support growth enhancing sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and general commerce, as well as individuals and households.
She stated: “Total credit increased by N4.10 trillion (21.12 per cent) between end October 2020 and end October 2021, due largely to the increase in the industry funding base and the CBN’s Loans to Deposit Ratio policy, which has encouraged banks to increase lending to the real sector of the economy.
