As usual, Attijariwafa Bank, Banque Populaire and BMCE top the list of Moroccan banks and continue to lead the sector in the North African country.

During 2008, deposits in the Moroccan banks increased by 13.4% and credits by 22.6%, compared to the previous year.

Attijariwafa Bank, the first in terms of performance, realised the best gross national product (GNP) and best net attributable profit, MAD 11 billion and MAD 3.6 billion respectively.

In one year, the number of its clients increased by 27% to reach 4 million people. The same can be said about its agencies (22%).

For its part, Banque Populaire comes second in the list. In 2008, the bank achieved a GNP of MAD 8 billion and saw its net attributable profit rise to MAD 2.8 billion.

With some MAD 116 billion of loans granted and MAD 151.9 billion of deposits, the bank received over 350,000 new clients, whose number reached 2.9 million.

The third bank in Morocco, BMCE also did well in 2008, with a GNP of MAD 6 billion and a net attributable profit of MAD 1.4 billion, an increase of 46%. The group provided more than MAD 58.6 billion of credits and collected MAD 88.7 billion in terms of deposits.

Since the beginning of the decade, the overall indicators of the financial sector in Morocco show a sustained development in its main activities.

In addition to this development, the financial sector, which has not been much affected by the international crisis, saw its weight in the Moroccan economy increasingly reinforced, through its contribution to production, revenue formation and the job creation.

And according to projections for the coming years, the sector will see a significant growth, mainly in the intermediation and insurance activities.