Includes special features of this country’s banking system and rules/laws that might impact U.S. business.

Morocco continues to modernize its banking system, originally modeled after the French system.  Morocco’s banks are some of Africa’s largest, and several have become important on the continent and continue to expand their footprint.

The sector has a reasonably competitive landscape, with a number of homegrown financial institutions with international footprints, as well as several subsidiaries of foreign banks. According to the 2017 Annual Report on Banking Supervision published on July 2018 by the Central Bank (Bank Al Maghrib), the sector includes 19 traditional banks, five participatory banks (Umnia Bank, Bank Assafa, BTI Bank, Bank Al Yousr, Al Akhdar Bank), 32 financing firms, 13 microcredit lenders, seven offshore banks and nine money transfer firms. The sector is dominated by locally owned banks, which account for 82.3% of industry assets. Credit is allocated freely and the central bank uses indirect methods to control the interest rate and volume of credit.

The banking participation rate is approximately 60%, with opportunities for firms pursuing rural and less affluent segments of the market.  Businesses must be registered in Morocco in order to open an account.

The Casablanca Stock Exchange is one of the largest and most important in Africa.  Privatized in 1996, the CSE is managed by 13 brokerage companies and regulated by an independent oversight commission.
 

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