African banks correspondent banking news: Afreximbank forum in Gaborone

African banks correspondent banking news: what is confirmed about the Gaborone event

According to the Botswana Press Agency (BOPA), the 2026 Afreximbank Trade Finance Seminar and the Afreximbank Compliance Forum will be held as one combined event, a first for the two meetings. Afreximbank is organising it in partnership with the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre. The agency says the gathering is meant to unite industry leaders, policymakers and experts from Africa's financial, regulatory and trade communities, and that its topics are trade finance and compliance frameworks and how they can support trade, investment, industrialisation and economic integration.

The BOPA report names no speakers and gives no attendance or cost figures. A speaker list for the forum was reported to be due on 3 November 2026, but that could not be confirmed on any page we opened, so this article does not name any participants. Anyone planning to attend should rely on the organiser's own announcements for the final programme.

African banks correspondent banking news: why compliance sits at the centre

The link between a compliance forum and correspondent banking is not new. In an interview published by BusinessDay on 24 October 2025, Idrissa Diop, Afreximbank's Director of Compliance, said international banks are withdrawing from African business because they see it as too risky and not profitable enough. He said Afreximbank wants to show that Africa is not as risky as it is perceived to be when institutions understand and follow the regulatory frameworks. He also warned that banks which do not understand the rules risk sanctions and the loss of correspondent relationships.

The same article pointed to concrete exits. It reported that HSBC announced in September 2024 that it would withdraw from South Africa, where it had operated since 1995, and that Societe Generale announced in May 2024 that it would leave Ghana after about twenty years there. It added that Societe Generale has been gradually leaving several African subsidiaries and that Barclays reduced its stake in South Africa's Absa Group to a non-controlling holding. These are older, dated developments; they are background for the Gaborone discussions, not new announcements.

Correspondent banking and the compliance financing facility

A second report, published in October 2025 and carried by the Mobilising Finance for Africa platform from Ecofin Agency, described the Afreximbank Compliance System Financing Facility. According to that report, the facility lets African banks borrow in order to buy technology and systems for anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorism-financing and sanctions compliance. The report did not state the size of the facility. Diop was quoted in paraphrase as saying that the aim is to bring African banks up to the same standard as their international peers, and that major international banks would not work with Afreximbank without a robust compliance system.

The report also said Afreximbank has widened its own role as a correspondent bank and that its Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, known as PAPSS, handles intra-African transactions. The reporting links this growing role to the retreat of some European banks from several African markets. Gwen Mwaba, who leads trade finance and correspondent banking at Afreximbank, was reported as saying that a shared due diligence repository helps financial institutions check clients and exchange information, and that training bankers on it strengthens relationships with global partners.

Numbers the reports use, and how to read them

The October 2025 reports cite several figures that readers often see in this debate. Africa is said to lose nearly 90 billion US dollars a year to illicit financial flows, about 3.7 percent of GDP, a figure attributed to UNCTAD. Afreximbank is reported to estimate Africa's trade finance gap at roughly 100 billion dollars a year. Diop said that of the 600 to 700 banks on the continent, many are under-equipped in compliance technology. The reports also noted that Nigeria, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Mozambique were removed from the FATF grey list on 24 October 2025, while several African countries remain on it, and that grey-listing raises funding costs and increases scrutiny by correspondent banks.

These are estimates and reported statements, not audited totals, and they date from 2025. They should be quoted with their source and date, not as current statistics for November 2026.

African banks correspondent banking news: what it means for banks, importers and exporters

The following points are general context, not reported facts and not legal advice. For a bank, the reporting suggests that the quality of compliance systems is treated by international partners as a condition for keeping correspondent lines open, which is why a forum on compliance and a seminar on trade finance are now being held together. For an importer, a weaker correspondent network can mean fewer banks willing to advise or confirm a letter of credit, which may affect the choice of bank, timing and cost. For an exporter selling into Africa, the confidence of the seller in the buyer's bank is exactly the issue Mwaba raised: exporters' limited confidence in African counterparties is one reason confirmation remains relevant.

Payment infrastructure is the other practical angle. PAPSS describes itself as a cross-border financial market infrastructure that supports near-instant transfers between countries in Africa and payments in local currencies, so customers can avoid converting through another currency. It connects banks and payment service providers and validates each payment instruction before forwarding it to the recipient's bank. Mwaba gave the example of a Malawian kwacha payment reaching a Kenyan supplier in Kenyan shillings. Such a system complements, rather than replaces, letters of credit and confirmation for larger or riskier transactions, and any company should check with its own bank what is available for a specific corridor.

What to watch from 16 to 18 November

Three questions will show whether the Gaborone meeting moves beyond statements. First, whether the compliance financing facility is presented with figures, such as size, approved loans or participating banks, since none were published in the reports reviewed. Second, whether the discussion gives practical guidance on how African banks can document compliance for their international partners. Third, whether trade finance providers and regulators agree on common expectations, so that banks in different countries are judged on similar terms.

The 2025 edition, the tenth, took place in Kigali from 12 to 14 November 2025 with the Central Bank of Rwanda and ESAAMLG, and the 2024 edition was held in Dakar with GIABA, according to the reports. Seen together, the series shows a steady focus on the same problem: keeping African banks connected to the global financial system. Further African banks correspondent banking news is likely once the programme and speakers are published by the organiser.

For readers following African banks correspondent banking news, the confirmed items above are the event dates and the themes the organisers have stated; everything beyond them was not confirmed at the time of writing.