Exclusive Interview: Alexandre Maymat, head of Africa, Mediterranean and Overseas, Societe Generale

In an exclusive interview with INTO AFRICA, Alexandre Maymat, head of Africa, Mediterranean and Overseas, Societe Generale shares that, ” Societe Generale’s roots in the financing of the real economy in Africa and its loyalty to the continent have encouraged the Bank to take a responsible look at the development of the African continent.

Arguably, the geographical expansion strategies of African banking groups have recorded limited success – some pioneers are now partly backtracking. What is Societe Generale’s pan-African banking strategy? And is there any future expansion to or exist from any African countries?

ALEXANDRE MAYMAT: Societe Generale has been anchored in the African territories for a very long time. We have been in Morocco for over 100 years, in Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon for 55 years. We have established in 9 new countries over the last 15 years, which reflects Societe Generale’s loyalty to the continent and its desire to continue its development.

We have also announced at the beginning of this year the signing of a partnership with Absa to expand our activities through the development of a pan-African wholesale banking offering. The challenge for foreign banks in Africa is to be able to have sustainable profitable activities while falling under increasing compliance constraints. We believe that Societe Generale can take up this challenge for several reasons.

First, Africa is more important for us than for a number of other actors. It represents 5% of the Group net banking income and 8% of the Group net income. Unlike many foreign institutions, we have consistently pursued a strategy of development and diversification on a broad regional basis. This puts us in a position to better sustain our growth as we can absorb the crisis of a country or a sector without affecting the global profitability of our franchise.

We have also demonstrated our ability to operate in Africa applying all of the Group’s compliance mechanisms and processes. It’s a day-to-day challenge, and we have very strict programs in place to meet our regulatory obligations with respect to KYC, or corruption. Today, this is a must.

In the field of wholesale banking where we service corporate clients, we have created systematic cooperation between our African network and our worldwide franchises of trade finance, cash management, structured finance, market activity, or private bank. In 2016, we have created a trading room in Abidjan, which covers West Africa, in the form of a JV between our African activities and the Group Markets activities. We have also created structured finance platforms in Casablanca and in Abidjan, which are JV between our African subsidiaries and the group’s structured finance business lines.

Another competitive advantage coming from our position of an international bank in Africa: we have strengthened the cooperation between the African network and the different geographies in which Societe Generale Group operates. We launched a China-Africa initiative, with SG China our subsidiary company in China which covers major clients from the telecom, infrastructure & construction sectors that are well present in Africa. Specific desks in all of our African subsidiaries support these clients in their projects in Africa with credit lines, bank counter-guarantees and daily flow processing. This set up has proved very successful notably because it is driven in Paris and in Africa by Chinese staff who speak the same language as our customers and were able to bring advisory and value-added very quickly into communities in Africa.

An extract from the INTO AFRICA July 2019 Edition: Trading Africa’s Prosperity. To read the full exclusive interview, please download by clicking: INTO AFRICA PUBLICATION: July 2019 EDITION.