Willingly positioning itself as a pan-African group, citizen, responsible and sustainable, the Attijariwafa Bank group wants to be a digital structure as innovative as it is a benchmark. Present in 26 countries around the world, the Moroccan group, with some 20,000 employees and 10.8 million customers, is a safe bet in the continent’s financial landscape, with its 5,835 branches, including 1,952 in sub-Saharan Africa. , 3,823 in North Africa, and around sixty points of sale in Europe, the Middle East, America and Asia. Youssef Rouissi, its Deputy Managing Director for the Corporate and Investment Banking division, spoke to Point Afrique on the economic, environmental and human challenges to be met.
Le Point Afrique: Faced with the challenges of financing projects, how does Attijariwafa Bank determine its orbit?
Youssef Rouissi: Africa is a rapidly changing continent with rapidly growing economies. It faces major challenges in terms of infrastructure development and industrialization. Thus, the investment needs imply a financing effort estimated at more than 100 billion dollars per year, in particular in the fields relating to energy, transport-logistics, urban infrastructure and connectivity. In addition to these structuring investments, it is also appropriate to underline the industrialization needs of the continent aimed at strengthening the added value and the impacts in terms of job creation and strengthening of the productive fabrics.
As a pan-African banking group, we can testify to the vigor of the ongoing transformations and the gradual emergence of middle classes supported by national strategic visions providing greater visibility to local and international investors. In order to support these dynamics, the Attijariwafa Bank group supports the States of the continent, as well as national and international economic operators through the arrangement, structuring and financing of their infrastructure and socio-economic development projects.
We are thus deploying several mechanisms to support and finance operators on the continent. In particular, Project finance is experiencing significant growth through advice and financing structuring, adapted to the technical, financial and legal specificities of each project, and inspired by the best international practices in this area. This financing is often the subject of local and international syndications in order to meet the needs of the projects in terms of size and maturity of the financing requested. Finally, they are often part of PPP (Public Private Partnership) partnership models that allow risk sharing between the public and private sectors, and transfer the burden of investment to the latter on the basis of a long-term contractual framework.
This expertise has made it possible to deploy considerable financing in several sectors, including infrastructure (port, road, airport, urban), energy, transport, or even the development of integrated industrial zones coupled with support for major industrial projects. . By way of illustration, Attijariwafa Bank participated in Cameroon alongside local banks and DFIs (Development Finance Institutions) in the financing of the Nachtigal hydroelectric project as local tranche loan officer, onshore security officer , and account-holding bank. Another example is the support of the Ivorian government, which made it possible to mobilize an envelope of 350 million US dollars for the rehabilitation of Cocody Bay in Abidjan…
On a continent that must combine economic development and the constraints of climate change, how does Attijariwafa Bank find its place to best mobilize and support public and private actors, individuals and businesses, non-governmental organizations and civil society? facing the energy challenge?
The Attijariwafa Bank group is fully aware of the environmental challenges facing our continent. This is why we have placed green finance at the heart of our strategy. Thus, we were the first commercial bank in Africa and in the Africa and Middle East region, as well as the seventh globally to have obtained accreditation to the United Nations Green Climate Fund ” GCF”). Through this regional accreditation, which covers all the countries where we operate, we are able to provide innovative financing solutions, in particular for sustainable development projects with a strong socio-economic impact.
More generally, the group has demonstrated its commitment to support the energy transition and sustainable development in Africa through the financing of several structuring green projects in the sectors of renewable energies, water, services public sanitation, waste management and environmental preservation.
In terms of energy transition, we have thus contributed to the financing of major electricity production projects from renewable energies with more than 2,000 MW of wind and hydroelectric projects financed across the continent.
In terms of sustainable development, the Attijariwafa Bank group is also continuing its efforts to support actions to combat climate change through the financing of green projects involving more than 400 million euros (in local currencies). These are landfill and waste recovery center projects, drinking water supply and sanitation projects, and various depollution projects in our countries of presence…
You recently traveled to Paris at the beginning of June, to ESCP in this case, to participate in a Talents Day devoted to identifying young people likely to be interested in a career in your bank. What is your method of attracting young Moroccan and African talent to fuel the continent’s ambitions?
Attijariwafa Bank cultivates proximity with academic players in all of its countries of presence and internationally. This approach reflects the interest we have in young talent, with a presence at campus level in order to actively contribute to the development of their skills and anchor Attijariwafa Bank as a dynamic Group and employer of choice.
The Talents Day that we organized within the ESCP Campus is fully in line with this strategy, which aims to promote the employer brand of our group as a pan-African multinational that considers its human capital as its primary asset. This event allowed us to meet African skills established in France as part of a Networking event. The objective of the Talents Day being to create a real dynamic of exchange and sharing around our Group, its strategy, its vision and the prospects it offers to these talents. It should be noted that the development of our overall attractiveness is based on an ambitious strategy aimed at strengthening our employer label around several initiatives. Thus, we are part of a continuous process of innovation with regular reflection on the different ways that allow us to identify, attract and recruit the best skills. Beyond the actions carried out externally, we are also working to strengthen our employee value proposition in order to improve the lives of our employees in the workplace and guarantee their development.
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