Afreximbank tackles risk of doing business in Africa with digital repository

African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) on Monday in Cairo officially launched the operations of ‘MANSA’, a pan-African customer due diligence repository for financial institutions, corporate entities, and SMEs, developed to address the perceived risk of doing business in Africa and with Africans.

MANSA is a single source of the primary data required for Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on African entities, including financial institutions, corporates, and SMEs, in accordance with best practices. The Platform will also serve to address key trade-related challenges facing the continent, including, the lack of market information, the high cost of doing business in Africa, and discovering African counterparties.

The launch of MANSA operations was announced at a virtual event hosted by Afreximbank that featured a panel discussion involving Benedict Oramah, President of Afreximbank; Ade Ayeyemi, Group CEO of Ecobank; Stefan Nalletamby, Director – Financial Sector Development Department at the African Development Bank; Naglaa Nozahie, Governor’s Advisor, African Affairs, Central Bank of Egypt and Engr. Mansur Ahmed, President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.

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Speaking during the event, Benedict Oramah said, “Globally, regulators are toughening their stance as well as the severity of their sanctions for breaches of customer due diligence compliance regulations instituted to prevent various financial crimes and related activities. This has dramatically increased the cost and complexity of satisfying Customer Due Diligence and Know Your Customer requirements. We have created MANSA as the solution to the negative impact on Africa, such as de-risking, the withdrawal of correspondent banking relationships and cuts in trade finance and investment financial flows to Africa.

In a fragmented continent of 55 countries that hardly traded among themselves since they became colonies, MANSA offers an opportunity to begin bringing down the borders and support the realisation of the goals of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).”

The platform is named after Mansa Musa, the Emperor of the Malian Empire in the 1300s, who was responsible for opening up trade across Africa and believed to be the only person ever to control the flow of gold between Africa and the Mediterranean.

In this initial phase of implementation, MANSA is now open to African businesses to onboard their corporate profiles to the Repository. Following an onboarding and validation process in keeping with the Platform’s compliance requirements, African entities will have their profiles listed and made available to users of the Repository.

Hope Moses-Ashike

Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.