By: ThinkBusiness Africa
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) Group announced on Thursday a robust financial performance for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, demonstrating continued financial resilience and growth despite a challenging global economic environment.
The bank’s financial statement highlights an increase in Net Income, a substantial jump in liquidity, and solid asset quality, although its loan portfolio saw a modest decline attributed to early repayments from financially healthier clients.
Afreximbank recorded an increase in profitability, with Net Income climbing to US$654.3 million for the nine-month period, up from US$642.2 million in 2024.
Gross Income rose to US$2.4 billion an increase from US$2.3 billion recorded in 2024, a notable achievement given the backdrop of declining benchmark interest rates.
Operating Income also saw a significant boost, growing by 5.24% to US$1.44 billion. The Bank maintained impressive cost efficiency, with a Cost-to-Income ratio of 21%, remaining comfortably below the strategic ceiling of 30%.
The Group reported a strong growth trajectory, evidenced by the expansion of its total assets and contingencies, which grew by 6.98% to reach US$42.9 billion as of September 30, 2025 increase from US$40.1 billion recorded in the corresponding period in 2024.
The Bank’s liquidity position strengthened significantly. Cash and cash equivalents soared to US$7.6 billion, up from US$4.6 billion at the end of 2024; primarily driven by successful and targeted fundraising initiatives, unscheduled early loan repayments from borrowing customers.
Consequently, the proportion of liquid assets to total assets increased sharply to 20% from 13% at year-end 2024. This robust liquidity pool positions Afreximbank well to support its future disbursement activities across the continent.
While Net loans and advances decreased slightly to US$28.0 billion compared to US$29.0 billion in 2024 the reduction is a positive indicator of improving client financial health.
Meanwhile, Moody’s and Fitch both downgraded the banks rating earlier in the year (July and June, respectively), citing concerns over asset performance, exposure to debt-distressed African sovereigns, and the bank’s shift in lending strategy.
Fitch downgraded Afreximbank’s rating to BBB- with a negative outlook, from BBB. Moody did the same, lowering the rating to Baa2 with a stable outlook from Baa1.
Afreximbank called the downgrades a miscalculation.
Afreximbank’s asset quality remains sound, with a Non-Performing Loan (NPL) ratio of 2.51% from 2.33% in 2024, which is still within prudent risk limits.
