The white paper, “Banking on Africa’s Future: Unlocking Capital and Partnerships for Sustainable Growth”, recently released by UBA Group, is a bold and intellectually ambitious contribution to the continent’s economic-development conversation. Drawing on UBA’s extensive presence across twenty African markets and key international financial hubs, the paper positions the bank not just as a market participant but as a thought leader seeking to redefine Africa’s financial narrative. Its central argument—that Africa’s problem is not a shortage of capital but an inability to mobilise existing wealth productively—is both provocative and refreshing. Yet, for all its ambition, the paper really ought to be read through a cautionary lens. Its vision is compelling, but its evidence and execution frameworks are uneven.
At the heart of the paper lies a powerful thesis: Africa holds more than US$4 trillion in domestic financial assets, yet too little of this capital is channelled into long-term, transformative investment. By reframing the debate from scarcity to mobilisation, UBA challenges the traditional dependency mindset that has shaped Africa’s economic discourse for decades. The white paper’s message—that Africa can, and must, invest in itself—is resonant and timely. But vision does not necessarily equal viability. The paper’s broad assertions are not always matched by the analytical depth or empirical specificity required to move policymakers, regulators, and institutional investors from rhetoric to execution.
“To its credit, UBA organises its recommendations around three conceptual pillars: shared vision, co-creation, and sustainability. These are intuitively appealing and reflect an awareness of the need for alignment across government, finance, and enterprise.”
The discussion of partnerships among domestic financial institutions, governments, and development finance institutions (DFIs) reflects an understanding of the complex ecosystem needed for capital deployment. UBA rightly calls for blended-finance models, infrastructure credit guarantees, and cross-border investment platforms that can de-risk projects and attract long-term funding. This conceptual clarity is one of the paper’s major strengths. Yet, the narrative often reads more as a strategic declaration than a technical roadmap. Missing are the quantitative models, implementation timelines, or governance templates that could anchor its optimism in measurable outcomes. For a bank with UBA’s institutional depth, the absence of granular evidence—country data, case studies, or regulatory simulations—weakens an otherwise persuasive proposition.
For Nigeria, the white paper arrives at a time when structural fragility demands both imagination and discipline. The nation’s infrastructure gap, chronic FX volatility, and low private-sector investment all underscore the urgency of mobilising domestic capital. The idea that Nigerian banks, pension funds, insurers, and sovereign funds can drive home-grown growth is undeniably attractive. But in practice, these institutions face significant barriers: restrictive regulations, risk aversion, inflation, and an underdeveloped pipeline of bankable projects. The white paper could have demonstrated stronger credibility by dissecting these constraints and proposing actionable reforms—such as pension-fund investment rule amendments, currency-hedging mechanisms, or more transparent public-private partnership frameworks. Without such specificity, its recommendations risk remaining merely aspirational.
The report’s treatment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) stands out as one of its more strategic interventions. It recognises that Africa’s US$3.4 trillion single market, if properly integrated, could be a catalyst for sustained intra-African trade and investment flows. Yet, the optimism glosses over persistent implementation bottlenecks: non-tariff barriers, customs inefficiencies, fragmented payment systems, and haphazard regulatory harmonisation. Nigeria’s private sector, though large and dynamic, remains only partially prepared to leverage these opportunities. UBA’s own pan-African presence could have provided valuable empirical insights—data on trade-finance volumes, lessons from regional corridors, or examples of successful cross-border banking frameworks. Instead, the discussion remains high-level, signalling strategic intent more than operational evidence.
Read also: UBA launches white paper to unlock $4trn idle capital in Africa
Equally, the paper’s focus on digital finance and innovation acknowledges a transformative reality. Across Lagos, Nairobi, and Accra, digital platforms are redefining how individuals and small businesses access capital. UBA’s contention that technology can amplify financial inclusion and productivity is correct. But again, the treatment remains celebratory rather than analytical. There is little exploration of the policy bottlenecks—data governance, cybersecurity, and interoperability—that could determine whether fintech becomes an instrument of empowerment or fragmentation. Nor does the paper engage with the uncomfortable reality of digital exclusion, particularly among rural populations and the informal workforce. For a document meant to chart the future of African finance, such omissions leave an analytical gap between vision and implementation.
The section on sustainable finance introduces an essential but underdeveloped theme. The argument that Africa’s growth must align with environmental and social sustainability is beyond dispute. Yet the paper’s framing is more normative than quantitative. It highlights the promise of blended finance and partnerships but offers no detailed assessment of the scale of Africa’s climate-finance gap or the realistic proportion of domestic funds that could be redirected under existing prudential rules. Moreover, the report avoids addressing the political economy of sustainability—the vested interests, policy inconsistencies, and weak enforcement mechanisms that frequently undermine infrastructure delivery in Nigeria and across the continent. Without acknowledging these realities, its prescriptions risk underestimating the complexity of green transformation.
Read also: UBA sets $4trn domestic capital agenda to fund Africa’s growth
To its credit, UBA organises its recommendations around three conceptual pillars: shared vision, co-creation, and sustainability. These are intuitively appealing and reflect an awareness of the need for alignment across government, finance, and enterprise. But as a research product, the white paper would have been more credible had it provided methodological transparency—how the data was derived, what metrics underpin the US$4 trillion estimate, and how partnerships are expected to be structured or evaluated. Readers are asked to take too much on faith, relying on UBA’s institutional reputation rather than on verifiable analysis. In development finance, reputation is valuable, but evidence is eminently indispensable.
For Nigeria’s policy and business elite, the white paper offers both inspiration and provocation. It invites institutional investors to re-examine their mandates, regulators to modernise outdated frameworks, and governments to demonstrate credibility through stability, transparency, and clear policy direction. The real challenge, however, lies in execution. Domestic mobilisation cannot occur in a vacuum. It requires strong monetary governance to stabilise and even strengthen the naira, a functional capital-market infrastructure that supports long-term instruments, and a disciplined project-management culture that delivers predictable outcomes. Until those foundations are in place, large domestic pools of liquidity will continue to chase short-term returns rather than long-term transformation.
Even so, the significance of Banking on Africa’s Future should not be understated. It signals an important shift in tone within Africa’s financial establishment—from dependency to self-determination, from expectation to agency. The white paper’s greatest value lies not in the precision of its data but in the courage of its framing. It forces African actors, particularly in Nigeria, to confront a simple truth: the continent’s financial future will be determined less by foreign inflows than by the alignment of domestic vision, discipline, and collaboration. Whether that alignment materialises will depend not on rhetoric but on reform.
In the final analysis, UBA’s 100-odd pages are a thoughtful and well-timed contribution that raises the right questions, even if it does not fully answer them. It deserves to be read not as a finished blueprint but as a provocation—a call to rethink how Africa finances its own ambitions. The next step requires empirical follow-through: detailed financial modelling, country-specific case studies, and transparent progress metrics that can turn vision into accountability. For Nigeria in particular, the path forward is clear. The nation must harness its capital, modernise its financial infrastructure, embrace digital innovation, and institutionalise governance that rewards transparency and execution. Only then can the promise of “banking on Africa’s future” become more than a slogan. It can indeed become an enduring strategy.
Dr Hani Okoroafor is a global informatics expert advising corporate boards across Europe, Africa, North America, and the Middle East. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BusinessDay. Reactions are welcome at doctorhaniel@gmail.com.
