Operating in today’s dynamic financial services landscape demands sound legal navigation amid rapid digital transformation, fintech disruption, evolving regulatory frameworks, and sustainability pressures.

Our pan-African and UAE team delivers comprehensive legal expertise to financial institutions across Africa and the UAE, specialising in structuring innovative financing, ensuring regulatory compliance, and managing complex restructurings that withstand economic volatility and technological shifts.

Our Financial Institutions Expertise

We provide integrated legal and strategic advice across Africa and the UAE to a wide range of clients, including:

  • Commercial and Retail Banks
  • Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Multilateral Lenders
  • Fintech Companies and Digital Banks
  • Investment Banks and Private Equity Funds
  • Non-Bank Financial Institutions and Insurers
  • Central Banks, Regulators, and Governments

Our on-the-ground presence in key financial hubs enables clients to execute transformative transactions, achieve compliance efficiency, mitigate emerging risks, and capitalise on digital and sustainable finance opportunities.

How We Help in Financial Institutions 

Our coordinated services span the full spectrum of banking and financial services, delivering tailored solutions for our clients’ operations in Africa and the UAE:

  • Regulatory & Licensing: Advising on banking licences, fintech authorisations, open banking compliance, and navigating evolving central bank directives, including crypto asset service provider regimes.
  • Project & Structured Finance: Structuring syndicated loans, development financings, mezzanine debt, and security packages, with expertise in cross-border facilities involving DFIs and export credit agencies.
  • Mergers, Acquisitions & Restructuring: Handling bank M&A, portfolio acquisitions, joint ventures, and insolvency/restructuring proceedings, including creditor schemes and resolution planning.
  • Fintech & Digital Transformation: Guiding partnerships, platform integrations, payment system licensing, and compliance with data protection, cybersecurity, and consumer protection rules.
  • Capital Markets & Funding:  Advising on debt issuances, Eurobonds, green/sustainable bonds, and equity raises, ensuring alignment with ESG disclosure standards.
  • Risk Management & ESG: Supporting Basel implementation, climate risk integration, financed emissions reporting, and sustainable finance frameworks to meet investor and regulatory expectations.
  • Dispute Resolution: Representing institutions in regulatory enforcement, commercial litigation, and international arbitration arising from financing defaults, misconduct allegations, or shareholder disputes.

Why Clients Choose ALN

  • Pan-African Reach: Coordinated on-the-ground execution across leading financial jurisdictions, combining local regulatory insight with international standards.
  • Regulatory Fluency: Deep expertise in managing fintech disruption, Basel reforms, and emerging sustainability/climate regulations to future-proof operations.
  • Integrated Teams: Specialists in banking and finance, Regulatory, Fintech, ESG, and Dispute Resolution collaborate seamlessly to deliver commercially driven outcomes.
  • Cross-border Delivery: Aligning African compliance nuances with global best practices to create resilient, investor-ready structures.

Representative transactions include advising:

  1. European Investment Bank, Proparco, DEG and FINFUND

    In connection with USD 115 million financing of the IPT Powertech Group in Lebanon, the Republic of Guinea and Nigeria.

  2. PROPARCO and FMO

    In connection with their syndicated financing of USD 40 million to Sugar Corporation of Uganda for the construction of a 25MW co-generation power plant.

  3. Credit Suisse and African Export-Import Bank

    In connection with a EUR 1 billion term loan facility to the Bank of Industry (BOI), Nigeria.  This was the largest loan that BOI has ever taken.

  4. Barak Fund SPC

    In connection with its provision of mezzanine finance of USD 100 million to Quantum Power International Holdings, including structuring various security interests on the Quantum entities incorporated in Mauritius.

  1. Credit Suisse

    In connection with a USD 1.2 billion financing to the Government of Tanzania through the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

  2. Africa Finance Corporation, African Development Bank and African Export Import Bank

    In connection with debt financing for the construction of a new international airport at Bugesera in Rwanda.

  3. African Export-Import Bank, Industrial Development Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa

    In connection with the provision of USD 195 million multi-jurisdictional syndicated debt facility to the Smile Group of companies dealing with 4G LTE broadband networks, in Tanzania.

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