Los bancos marroquíes conseguirán una mejor gestión de riesgo en 2022

The outlook for Moroccan banks over the course of 2022 forecasts good data. BMCE Capital, a financial management and analysis company that operates in the Kingdom and has one of its headquarters in Casablanca, assures that the entities that work with this company will be able to improve their performance. It is expected that banks will be able to manage risk if a number of conditions are put in place that will impact the national economy with good results.

On the other hand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also commented on the issue and made a recommendation to the Kingdom to establish a secondary market to cover bad loans for risk improvement. The global body calls on Morocco's banking sector to allow commercial entities to collect these loans as financial products, which will then be sold to investors.

Risk has been a major problem for the Alawi country since the pressure of the coronavirus and all the negative effects it has had both nationally and globally. Since 2020, and through 2021, Moroccan banks have had to face this major challenge and the forecasts were not favourable until now. Although no decision has yet been taken on what banks will do, new measures will reduce the level of risk, according to experts in the economic sector.

Bank Al-Maghrib, Morocco's central bank, has unveiled a document that reports on the economic outlook for the new year. Leaving behind the economic sector, the nation's banks reflect a slowdown in the growth of demand deposits in banks. These have fallen from 7.6 % to 7.5%. On the other hand, money market fund holdings have declined by only 0.5%.

The paper also adds that time deposits have increased by 4.6% compared to December when values were at 3.3%. On the other hand, foreign exchange and foreign currency have increased by 5.8% and 28.4% respectively.

Bank credit is also expected to increase, with a growth of 2.8%. Credit to the financial sector declined by 5% and lending to the non-financial sector is set to stabilise. This was 4.1%.

Another point that is expected to improve is the liquidity of the entities. The experts foresee a great improvement since in December it was reduced to 64.8 billion dirhams. Another point that grew at the end of 2021 was the increase in foreign exchange reserves, 71.5 billion euros were raised; in this case, Moroccan banks injected a total of 82.8 billion.

The Central Bank, in turn, has noted a recent sluggishness in the activity of Islamic banks. Abdelatif Jouahri, governor of the Central Bank Bank Al-Maghrib, says that despite the sustainable increase in loans offered by these offices, exceeding 17.5 billion dirhams in August 2021, the deposits they manage only reach 4.5 billion dirhams.  
"The problem of participatory banks lies in the continuous increase in demand, because the funds they manage only satisfy a third of the demand," explained the director of the Moroccan Association of Islamic Finance, Abdeslam Balaji. For his part, he also claims that the coronavirus health crisis has dampened the boom.

The pandemic has had many negative consequences, but the competent authorities point out that Morocco will start to experience economic growth from 2022 onwards. "The economic recovery should continue in the coming years, despite the aftermath of the pandemic," said Roberto Cardarelli, IMF mission chief for Morocco.

He also says the Kingdom's foreign exchange reserves are being strengthened despite the pandemic. "Although this outlook remains marked by uncertainty, particularly linked to the evolution of the pandemic, which is the main source of risk, effective and rapid structural reforms should accelerate growth in the medium term," he concluded.