The Great African Treasury Shift

In September 2026, Global Finance Magazine published an article titled "The Great African Treasury Shift." The story explores how Nigeria's naira liberalization in June 2023 initiated a ripple effect across Africa. In March 2024, Egypt began devaluing its pound as part of an IMF-supported reform program, followed by Ethiopia's dismantling of foreign-exchange controls four months later.

Although headlines focused on inflation, exchange-rate volatility, and political fallout, multinational boardrooms were quietly contemplating where to hold liquidity, whether to repatriate capital efficiently, and whether local-currency borrowing was preferable to offshore funding. The answers were reshaping Africa's treasury landscape.

Phumlani Majozi, executive director of the African Markets Institute (AMI), noted that treasury efficiency had shifted from a secondary consideration to a first-order determinant, often becoming the binding constraint even when infrastructure and trade fundamentals appeared sound. Multinational companies now prefer an environment where capital can move easily when needed.

Lending by China's policy banks to Africa had dropped dramatically, from US$28.8 billion in 2016 to US$2.1 billion in 2024. With the African Development Bank estimating a US$170 billion annual need for infrastructure financing, but only US$80 billion to US$90 billion currently attracted, the financing gap was substantial.

Treasury roles evolved from supporting investment decisions to influencing them. Mike Richards, founder and CEO of The Treasury Recruitment Company, emphasized that treasurers now needed to help CFOs and boards understand risks and make crucial decisions. In Africa, treasury teams had to manage 54 sovereign jurisdictions, 40+ currencies, multiple exchange-rate regimes, and complex banking regulations and capital controls.

This created operational challenges, with companies sometimes holding surplus cash unable to be repatriated due to foreign-exchange restrictions or facing liquidity constraints in markets with limited hard currency access.

The fragmented pools of capital, governed by different regulations, currency regimes, and banking systems, imposed a hidden investment tax, Majozi argued. Uncertain currency convertibility fragmented intra-African capital movement across more than 40 regulatory regimes, and hedging instruments for smaller African currencies were thin or nonexistent. This liquidity-trapped capital discount often outweighed the potential benefits from improved infrastructure or regulation.

To address these challenges, technology was becoming increasingly important. Bob Stark, global head of market strategy at Kyriba, reported that treasury teams were becoming more data-driven in analyzing and executing currency risk-management programs. Greater visibility into balance-sheet and cash-flow exposures enabled companies to strengthen natural hedging while making more efficient use of forward contracts and options.

AI was seen as the logical next step, with Stark stating, "There is no AI strategy without a data strategy."