The Banking Systems in Arabic South-Mediterranean Countries – Growth Financing and Financial Stability Issues

Financial systems of Southern Mediterranean Arab Countries have gone through deep transformations in the last two decades. The international financial crisis and political tensions in the region have has highlighted the strong resilience of financial systems, but also their internal weaknesses.

In this region, the effectiveness of the banking system in fulfilling its intermediation role is key to face the challenges linked to financing an accelerated and inclusive growth path. Developments in the structure of capital, the internationalization of banks and the emergence of Islamic banking have all contributed to this process. Notwithstanding, these financial systems remain dominated by commercial banks with classical finance business models, and capital markets have not yet reached maturity. These banking models have resulted in poor access of SME to funding, mainly as a consequence of the lack of alternative financial products.

Despite the progress in micro- and macro-prudential regulation, the challenge still remains for the banking systems to guarantee a sustainable financial stability. These challenges are linked to a great extent to the complexity of the implementation of the Bale III standards. This is compounded by the concerns arising from financial inclusion, managing fintech innovations and cybersecurity. The main concern of regulators is to strike a balance between internal priorities linked to financing growth and the transposition into internal regulation of increasingly strict international standards.