Mustafa Rawji's Rawbank posts 232 million dollars profit as DRC's largest lender targets regional investment banking

Mustafa Rawji is steering his family's bank into a faster gear. Rawbank, the Democratic Republic of Congo's largest lender and the cornerstone of the Rawji family's business empire, said its net profit climbed 9% to $232 million in 2025, with banking revenue jumping by a third to $682 million on the back of a 10% expansion in loan volumes.

The growth pace eased slightly from 11% in 2024, but the underlying numbers tell a story of a bank pushing well beyond traditional retail lending. Rawbank, founded by the Rawji family in 2002, has been deepening exposure to mining, infrastructure and small and medium-sized enterprises, the segments where the DRC's economic momentum is most visible.

The SME book is the standout. Chief financial officer Kadija Sangho Keita said the SME portfolio grew 25% in 2025, with loan-loss provisions on that book staying in line with the rest of the bank thanks to risk-sharing arrangements with the International Finance Corporation and other development lenders. "We have 25% growth in our SME portfolio," she said.

The headline ratios round out the picture. Total assets stand at $6.82 billion. The non-performing loan ratio sits at 2.82%. Return on equity reached 36%, up from 33% the previous year and well above the roughly 12% global banking average. Rawji's bank is squeezing more out of its capital than most lenders globally.

The macro tailwind helps. The Central Bank of Congo expects the DRC, the world's second-largest copper producer, to grow above 6% in 2026. The central bank also cut its benchmark rate to 13.5% from 25% as recently as October 2025, and inflation fell back to 2.2% in March. With only about a quarter of the country's 100 million people holding a bank account, the runway for credit growth is wide.

Competition is closing in. Equity BCDC, the Congolese subsidiary of Kenya's Equity Group, has been narrowing the gap with Rawbank in Central Africa, and Rawji's response has been to push into investment banking. Rawbank co-coordinated the DRC's first sovereign eurobond in April 2026 alongside Citigroup and Standard Chartered, helping Kinshasa raise $1.25 billion against an initial $750 million target on a four-times-oversubscribed order book of $5.2 billion.

The next move is mining. Rawbank is in talks on new syndicated financing for the country's mining groups, the kind of business that doubles as both a balance-sheet driver and a regional positioning play. Rawji wants the bank to become a true African investment franchise, not just a Congolese deposit-taker.