What do we know about the role of bank competition in Africa?

Etudes & documentsThis paper reviews the literature regarding the consequences of interbank competition. The literature has identified three reasons why competition in the financial sector is important: firstly, for efficient functioning of financial intermediaries and markets, secondly, for firms and households access to financial services and thirdly, for stability of the financial system. While special attention is dedicated to empirical papers focusing on African banking systems, this review also considers works on other developing and developed economies