Bank Al-Maghrib’s 2025 annual banking supervision report, presented by Nabil Badr, director of banking supervision, alongside deputies Ilham Zainane and Youssef Ghchioua, marks a strategic turning point, according to the daily L’Économiste. Rather than simply confirming the sector’s good health, the document reorients prudential strategy toward anticipating future threats — cybersecurity, climate risk, artificial intelligence and open banking.
The shift comes against a favorable economic backdrop, supported by 4.9 percent growth, low inflation and an accommodative monetary policy. By the end of 2025, outstanding bank credit reached 1,238 billion dirhams, up 6.5 percent, while deposits grew 7.6 percent to surpass 1,372 billion dirhams. Financial performance followed suit: net banking income at conventional banks topped 73.8 billion dirhams, up 9 percent, while aggregate net profit jumped more than 22 percent to 19.2 billion dirhams, helped by recurring revenue growth and a 25 percent drop in the cost of risk.
Banks remain solid and well-capitalized, with an average solvency ratio of 16.1 percent and a Tier 1 capital ratio of 13.5 percent, both well above regulatory requirements. Despite these reassuring indicators, the central bank maintains its call for caution on dividend distribution to preserve safety margins against international uncertainty.
Credit distribution is also becoming more qualitative, L’Économiste notes. Equipment credit surged nearly 23 percent to 349 billion dirhams, reflecting a revival in corporate investment and major infrastructure projects, while cash-flow credit fell 2 percent, signaling reduced reliance on short-term financing. Housing credit rose 1.5 percent and consumer credit 3.8 percent. Non-performing loans edged down slightly to 8.26 percent of the total, though their volume continued climbing past 102 billion dirhams, prompting Bank Al-Maghrib to introduce a new category of “sensitive receivables” for early detection of borrower difficulties.
Non-financial risks now sit at the heart of the supervisory framework, with cybersecurity a top priority — new dashboards, tighter oversight of critical service providers and a ransomware-prevention guide. Climate factors are also being folded into risk assessments, with banks required to measure clients’ exposure. A new bank resolution regime adopted in 2026 names Bank Al-Maghrib as resolution authority and requires lenders to draft recovery plans, raising the stakes in a concentrated sector where the top three banks hold 61.2 percent of assets and the top five nearly 76 percent.
