Nigeria is among six African countries that accounted for 80% of the continent’s excellent corporate debt on the finish of 2025, in keeping with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The discovering is contained within the OECD Africa Capital Markets Report 2026, launched on Friday and obtained by Nairametrics.
The report highlights the focus of corporate debt exercise in a small quantity of African economies, regardless of ongoing efforts to deepen capital markets throughout the area.
South Africa had the most important share at roughly 31%, adopted by Nigeria at 16% and Egypt at 13%. Mauritius accounted for 9%, Mozambique 6% and Morocco 5%, bringing the mixed share of the six countries to 80%.
Six countries dominate African corporate debt
The OECD mentioned corporate debt market improvement varies considerably throughout African economies, with exercise concentrated in a handful of countries.
- South Africa has maintained its place because the area’s largest corporate debt market over the previous 15 years, with excellent corporate debt of $63 billion on the finish of 2025. Egypt, nevertheless, has misplaced some of its relative share.
- Companies headquartered within the nation accounted for 30% of Africa’s corporate debt in 2010, barely beneath South Africa’s share, however that proportion had fallen by greater than half by 2025.
- The report attributed a lot of the decline to a contraction in Egypt’s corporate debt inventory relatively than fast enlargement in different markets.
Syndicated loans stay the dominant type of market-based corporate debt financing in most African countries. Corporate bonds play a extra important function in Morocco, Gabon, Sudan and Togo, though the OECD famous that, exterior Morocco, this largely displays financial-sector issuance and underdeveloped syndicated mortgage markets relatively than deep corporate bond markets.
- The organisation additionally noticed that African economies have proven some resilience amid difficult exterior and macro-financial situations, supported partly by market reforms, better participation by home traders and enhancements in market infrastructure.
However, Africa accounted for less than 0.4% of international market capitalisation in 2024. Shallow home markets, restricted liquidity and continued dependence on financial institution lending and exterior official financing stay main constraints.
Africa’s $4.4 trillion home capital pool
Despite the comparatively small dimension of African capital markets, the OECD recognized important potential within the monetary sources already gathered throughout the continent.
- It estimated that Africa’s home capital swimming pools exceed $4.4 trillion. These embody belongings held by banks, public improvement banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance coverage firms, different monetary establishments and central banks.
- According to the report, mobilising extra of these sources by home and regional capital markets might present long-term financing for productive funding whereas strengthening monetary resilience, notably as entry to exterior financing stays constrained.
The OECD mentioned the continent’s home capital swimming pools account for round 0.9% of international monetary belongings, highlighting the hole between the sources out there inside African economies and the comparatively restricted function of their capital markets in financing progress.
- “Overall, capital markets remain underutilised as a source of long-term finance — particularly when compared to other emerging-market economies — limiting their contribution to economic growth and resilience,” the OECD mentioned.
Nigerian corporations nonetheless depend upon financial institution loans
Nigeria’s corporate debt profile displays the report’s considerations in regards to the continued reliance on financial institution financing, regardless of progress in various funding devices akin to business papers and corporate bonds.
The funding image additionally comes amid altering liquidity situations within the banking system. Nairametrics reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria recorded a net liquidity injection of approximately N3.20 trillion in October 2026, as maturing securities price N10.69 trillion exceeded the N7.49 trillion raised by Open Market Operations and Nigerian Treasury Bills.
