Ivorian tycoon Jean Kacou Diagou's NSIA Group secures $34.2 million from UK development finance to expand SME lending

NSIA Banque Côte d'Ivoire, the flagship banking subsidiary of Ivorian billionaire Jean Kacou Diagou's NSIA Group, has signed a €30 million ($34.2 million) term loan facility with British International Investment, the United Kingdom's development finance institution, to expand access to credit for small and medium-sized enterprises and women entrepreneurs in Côte d'Ivoire.

The signing ceremony took place in Abidjan on June 17, 2026, in the presence of Jean Kacou Diagou, Chairman of the NSIA Group, Léonce Yacé, chief executive of NSIA Bank Côte d'Ivoire and NSIA Financial Holding, Chris Chijiutomi, Managing Director and Head of Africa at BII, and John Marshall, the United Kingdom's Ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire.

The facility qualifies as a 2X investment under the 2X Challenge, a global initiative co-founded by BII to promote investment in women's economic empowerment. Under the terms of the agreement, at least 30 percent of the financing will be channelled to women-led businesses, with the remainder directed at Ivorian MSMEs more broadly. MSMEs contribute approximately 20 percent of Côte d'Ivoire's GDP and 23 percent of employment, but consistently struggle to access working capital due to insufficient collateral to secure loans from the formal banking sector.

The transaction marks BII's second investment in an NSIA Group subsidiary, following a €12 million financing provided to NSIA Bank Benin in 2025 through a securitisation in which BII participated as reference investor. The back-to-back commitments to different NSIA banking units across two separate West African markets reflect growing institutional confidence in the group's underwriting capacity and its ability to deploy development finance at scale.

Diagou said the partnership reflects NSIA's vision of finance as a tool for economic transformation rather than simply a commercial activity. "SMEs are the engine of growth and job creation in Africa. Through this partnership with British International Investment, we are strengthening our capacity to support Ivorian entrepreneurs, particularly women, whose potential contribution to economic development remains considerable," he said. "This collaboration illustrates our vision of finance that is useful, inclusive, and sustainable, serving the transformation of our economies."

Diagou founded NSIA in Côte d'Ivoire in 1995 with a single insurance subsidiary. Over three decades he has built it into one of West Africa's largest bancassurance groups, now operating across 12 countries in West and Central Africa with banking operations spanning Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Senegal, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria. The group's banking arm holds a 5.2 percent market share in the West African Monetary Union zone and ranks among the largest banking groups in the UEMOA region by the banking commission's classification. The Diagou family has increased its direct control of the holding company, NSIA Participations, after buying out Canada's National Bank of Canada's position, with the family investment vehicle Manzima Holding now holding 68.73 percent.

The BII facility arrives at a moment of active governance and structural change within the NSIA banking arm, as Diagou tightens oversight and positions the group for the next phase of West African growth. The group's stated ambition is to become the leading bancassurance platform in francophone Africa, using a combination of organic growth, targeted acquisitions and international development finance partnerships to extend its reach.