Bank Regulation in the Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries: Dynamics and Trends

: This paper discusses the dynamics of bank regulation in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region during the period before the 1990s and post 1990s and describes the trends in bank regulatory measures between 1995 and 2017 using the updated databases of the World Bank’s Bank Regulation and Supervision Surveys. Before the 1990s, bank regulation in the majority of SSA countries was inadequate and that led to multiple occurrences of banking crises. As a result, many countries introduced the financial sector reforms from the late 1980s that included major adjustments in the banking regulatory and supervisory frameworks. In both low-income and middle-income SSA economies, bank regulatory environment became more stringent over time, driven by increased restrictions on bank entry barriers and ownership structure, as well as the introduction of macroprudential policies in the case of the former, while in the case of the latter, it was influenced by more restrictions on bank ownership structure and capital regulation requirements, as well as the adoption of macroprudential policies. Overall, the bank regulatory environment was slightly more stringent in middle-income than in low-income SSA countries over the period under review.


Introduction
Achieving and maintaining financial stability through bank regulation has remained one of the fundamental policies aiming to promote economic growth and development in various countries across the world.This is also true for countries in the SSA region: First, these countries have adopted various bank regulatory measures such as, inter alia.entry barriers, ownership structure restrictions, capital requirements, and activity restrictions since the introduction of the Basel accords in the late 1980s and during the aftermath of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis (Anginer, Bertay, Cull, Demirgüç-Kunt, & Mare, 2019; Barth, Caprio, & Levine, 2001, 2008, 2013; Enoch, Mathieu, Mecagni, & Kriljenko, 2015).These bank regulatory measures have been introduced to minimise financial risks borne by individual banking institutions.Second, the majority of these countries have implemented different macroprudential policies with some using them even prior to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis (Cerutti, Claessens, & Laeven, 2017).This has been done with the central purpose of managing a build-up of systemic risk arising from the financial sector, which is normally dominated by the banking industry in these developing economies (Mlachila et al., 2016).
The literature contends that one of the main goals of bank regulation is to prohibit banks to engage in excessive risk-taking behaviour, given the problems of information asymmetry that exist within the credit market (Stiglitz & Weiss, 1981).In support of this objective, Crockett (1996) presents four main arguments justifying why bank regulation matters.Firstly, the consumer protection argument suggests that bank regulation gives the depositors some measure of protection from losses that could occur due to banks' excessive risk-taking behaviour.Secondly, the systemic risk argument states that bank regulation limits the possibilities of bank contagion in the periods characterised by financial distress.This minimises the spread of financial risks that emanate from one bank and transmitted to other banks.Thirdly, given that some banks are deemed to be toobig-to-fail and deserve bailouts from the government (Dam & Koetter, 2012), the fiscal argument indicates that bank regulation shields the government against losses that it could incur as a lender of last resort when bank failures occur.Lastly, the efficiency argument indicates that bank regulation enhances the level of financial development within the economy by encouraging the efficient allocation of financial resources.
Given the importance of bank regulation and the fact it has been changing over time in the SSA region, it is necessary to document such developments and present their up-to-date trends.Thus, this paper aims to discuss the dynamics of bank regulation in the SSA region during the period before 1990s and after that time and describe the trends in bank regulatory measures between 1995 and 2017 using the updated databases of the World Bank's Bank Regulation and Supervision Surveys (BRSS) 1 .The remainder of the paper is structured as follows.Section 2 highlights the dynamics of bank regulation in SSA countries.Section 3 presents trends in bank regulatory measures in the selected low-income and middle-income SSA economies and undertakes a comparison of bank regulation between these income groups of countries.The last section provides the concluding remarks.

Dynamics of Bank Regulation in SSA Countries
Before the 1990s, bank regulation in the majority of SSA countries was inadequate.Le Gall, Daumont, & Leroux (2004) present various factors that contributed to such deficiency.First, central banks were not given enough authority to supervise banks under the outdated legislations that were used to regulate the financial sector; both the government and the central bank shared the responsibility of banking supervision, with the former limiting enforcement of prudential requirements in favour of government-related projects or businesses.Second, the central banks lacked the capacity to adequately monitor and supervise banks, and they often relied on insufficient information due to lack of data and irregular prudential reports.Lastly, the existing bank regulations were not well-defined when it comes to issues of minimum capital requirements, exposures to risk, and prudential limits on bank lending, amongst others.
The observed weaknesses in bank regulation in the SSA region led to multiple occurrences of banking crises.For example, the region experienced about 39 systemic banking crises between 1970s and mid-1990s, compared with 51 that occurred in the rest of the world (Laeven & Valencia, 2013).As a result, many SSA countries introduced the financial sector reforms from the late 1980s that included major adjustments in the banking regulatory and supervisory frameworks (Nyantakyi & Sy, 2015).According to Enoch et al. (2015), Mecagni, Marchettini, & Maino (2015), and Mlachila et al. (2016), almost all SSA countries implemented the Basel I accord (developed in 1988 and launched in 1992), which imposed the minimum capital required ratio of 8% (as a share of the risk-weighted assets) with the aim of minimising credit risk.Other countries later adopted higher stand-ards of the Basel II (launched in 2004), and the Basel III (launched in 2010), with Angola, Botswana, Malawi, and Mozambique implementing the Basel II or parts of it, while Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) 2 , and South Africa adopting the Basel II and III or parts of them.The Basel II accord incorporated operational risk when determining the minimum capital required ratio, enhanced risk monitoring, and promoted transparency, while the Basel III accord strengthened the Basel II's capital requirements and introduced the macroprudential perspective to limit systemic risk.Furthermore, most SSA countries have aligned themselves with the international financial reporting standards, while a few, such as Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Madagascar, and South Sudan, are still following their own national financial reporting standards.When it comes to deposit insurance schemes, they have only been implemented by the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) 3 , Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.Table 1 summarises these banking sector regulatory and supervisory standards in SSA countries.As a result, these banking sector reforms, coupled with other financial reforms, are believed to have promoted financial stability and development by enhancing sustainable bank lending to the domestic private sector in the SSA region (Nyantakyi & Sy, 2015).

Trends in Bank Regulation in the Selected SSA Countries
The trends in bank regulation in the selected SSA countries4 are captured by the entry barrier, ownership structure, activity restriction, capital regulation, and macroprudential indices over the period 1995-2017.The entry barrier index measures the degree of restrictions on bank licensing and foreign ownership, while the ownership structure index captures the extent to which banks, nonfinancial firms, and non-bank financial firms can own and control each other.
Moreover, the activity restriction index measures the degree of restrictions on engagement in securities, insurance, and real estate activities by banks, whereas the capital regulation index captures the stringency of bank regulatory requirements regarding bank capital.Finally, the macroprudential index measures the degree of macroprudential regulation using a simple sum of scores on relevant macroprudential policies.Table A1 in the appendix shows the sub-components, the qualification criteria, and the range for each index.
In the case of the microprudential indices (entry barrier, ownership structure, activity restriction, and capital regulation indices), Table A2 in the appendix presents their available surveys from the BRSS for each of the selected SSA countries.Time series values for the periods 1995-1999, 2000-2003, 2004-2007, 2008-2011, and 2012-2017 are given by the indices from the Survey I to V, respectively.For instances where data is unavailable on one of the surveys, the previous or subsequent available survey data is used.
When it comes to the macroprudential index, the time series data for each of the selected SSA countries, covering the period 2000-2017, is derived from

Trends in Bank Regulation in the Selected Low-Income SSA Countries
The selected low-income SSA group is composed of the following economies: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda.Despite reductions in bank activity restrictions and capital regulation requirements, the bank regulatory environment in these low-income SSA economies became more stringent during the review period, driven by increased restrictions on bank entry barriers and ownership structure, as well as the introduction of macroprudential policies.Figure 1 presents the trends in the bank regulatory indices for the selected low-income SSA countries over the period 1995-2017, while Table 2 provides the averages of such indices.1995-2007 2008-2017 1995-2017 1995-2007 2008-2017 1995-2017 1995-2007 2008-2017 1995-2017 1995-2007 2008-2017 1995-2017 1995-2007 2008-2017 1995 countries that recorded the above-average mean scores are Uganda (0.80), Malawi (0.67), and Guinea-Bissau (0.66).Hence, the variation of the index over time was relatively high when compared to other bank regulatory measures.
Lastly, the macroprudential index remained the same over time in the majority of low-income SSA economies (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo).However, the index trended upwards in the following countries: Malawi, which, on top of the already existing limits on foreign currency loans, introduced concentration limits in 2006 and capital surcharges on Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) in 2016; Uganda, which adopted limits to interbank exposures, limits on foreign currency loans, leverage ratios, and capital surcharges on SIFIs in 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2016, respectively; Guinea-Bissau, which implemented concentration limits in 2017; and Tanzania, which introduced concentration limits, time-varying or dynamic loan-loss provisions, and limits on foreign currency loans in 2014 as well as loan-to-value ratio caps in 2015.
The average score of the macroprudential index for all the selected low-income SSA countries increased from 0.03 in the period 1995-2007 to 0.07 during the period 2008-2017.Overall, the index registered the group's mean score of 0.05 from 1995 to 2017, with Burundi, Uganda, Malawi, and Tanzania recording the above-average mean scores of 0.25, 0.15, 0.13, and 0.05, respectively.The former already had time-varying or dynamic loan-loss provisions, concentration limits, and foreign exchange and/or countercyclical reserve requirements from the beginning of the period under review.In comparison with other indices, the degree of the macroprudential index was very low, and the index experienced very little variation over time.

Trends in Bank Regulation in the Selected Middle-Income SSA Countries
The selected middle-income SSA group is made up of the following countries: Angola, Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Eswatini, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa.Although the restrictions on bank activities fell over time while the entry barriers remained relatively the same, the bank regulatory environment in these middle-income SSA economies became more stringent during the period under consideration, driven by increased restrictions on bank ownership structure and capital regulation requirements, as well as the adoption of macroprudential policies.The trends in the bank regulatory indices for the selected middle-income SSA countries over the period from 1995 to 2017 are depicted in Figure 2, while Table 3 gives the averages of such indices.Finally, the macroprudential index increased over time in the majority of the middle-income SSA economies, while it remained the same in Ghana.The index experienced an upward trended in the following countries: Angola, which introduced concentration limits in 2007 and limits on foreign currency loans in 2011; Botswana, which, on top of the existing concentration limits, implemented limits to interbank exposures in 2016; Côte d'Ivoire, which adopted concentration limits in 2013; Eswatini, which introduced concentration limits as well as limits to foreign currency loans in 2001; Kenya, which implemented debt-to-income ratios in 2007; Lesotho, which adopted limits to interbank exposures in 2012 over the prevailing concentration limits and restrictions on domestic currency loans; Mauritius, which introduced debt-to-income ratios and capital surcharges on SIFIs in 2014 and 2016, respectively, over the existing concentration limits and loan-to-value ratios; Namibia, which implemented concentration limits, leverage ratios, and loan-to-value ratios in 2003, 2009, and 2017, respectively; Nigeria, which adopted concentration limits in 2004, limits to foreign currency loans in 2014, and capital surcharges on SIFIs in 2015; and South Africa, which introduced concentration limits, leverage ratios, and capital surcharges on SIFIs in 2008, 2013, and 2016, respectively.
The mean score of the macroprudential index for all the selected middle-income SSA countries rose from 0.06 during the period 1995-2007 to 0.14 in the period 2008-2017.Overall, the index recorded the group's average score of 0.09 from 1995 to 2017.The countries that registered the above-average mean scores over the entire period (1995-2017) are Lesotho (0.19), Ghana (0.17) (which already had concentration limits and levy or tax on financial institutions from the beginning of the review period), Eswatini (0.12), Mauritius (0.12), and Namibia (0.9).When compared to other bank regulatory measures, the macroprudential index was relatively low and experienced a little variation over time.

Comparison of Bank Regulation in the Selected Low-income and Middle-Income SSA Countries
The paper further compares the average measures of bank regulation in the selected low-income and middle-income SSA countries and ranks these countries according to the sum of averages of bank regulatory measures as a proxy for overall bank regulatory environment.Figure 3 provides this comparison of the average measures of bank regulation between the two income groups of countries.
Firstly, the average level of the entry barrier index was higher in the low-income than in the middle-income SSA economies over the period 1995-2017.The difference in the average levels of the index between these groups of countries became even larger in the period 2008-2017 than during the period 1995-2007 due to a considerable higher degree of the entry barrier index recorded in the selected low-income SSA economies.When it comes to the average level of the ownership structure index, it was higher in the low-income than in the middle-income SSA countries between 1995 and 2017.Although the index increased in both income groups of countries during the period 2008-2017 when compared to the period 1995-2007, the low-income SSA economies still registered a higher increment than the middle-income SSA countries, which widened the gap between the average levels of the index in these groups of countries.
On the contrary, the middle-income SSA countries experienced a higher average degree of the activity barrier index than the low-income SSA economies from 1995 to 2017.Nevertheless, the index declined in both income groups of countries between the periods 1995-2007 and 2008-2017, with the gap between their average levels narrowing because of a steeper decline in the average index of the middle-income SSA countries than that of the low-income SSA economies.
Similarly, the average degree of the capital regulation index in the middle-income SSA countries was higher than that of the low-income SSA economies during the period 1995 to 2017.While the index significantly declined in the low-income SSA countries between the periods 1995-2007 and 2008-2017, it increased slightly in the middle-income SSA economies, thereby widening the gap between the average levels of the index between these income groups of countries.
Lastly, the average level of the macroprudential index was higher in the middle-income than in the low-income SSA countries over the period 1995 to 2017.The difference in the average levels of the index between these income groups of countries was even larger during the period 2008-2017 than in the period 1995-2007 due to a considerable higher degree of the macroprudential index recorded in the selected middle-income SSA economies.The paper also ranks the selected low-income and middle-income SSA countries according to the sum of averages of bank regulatory measures as a proxy for overall bank regulatory environment as shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5. Between 1995 and 2007, the degree of overall bank regulation in nine out of 23 SSA countries was above the group's average.Six of them are middle-income countries (Lesotho, Mauritius, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, and Kenya), while the other three are low-income economies (Uganda, Malawi, and Burundi).Out of 14 countries that had the below-average levels of overall bank regulation, five are middle-income countries (Eswatini, Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa, Angola, and Namibia), while nine are low-income economies (Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Tanzania).Thus, the bank regulatory environment was slightly stricter in the SSA countries than in the low-income SSA economies over the period 1995-2007.Considering the period from 2008 to 2017, 10 out of 23 SSA countries recorded the overall bank regulation levels that were above the group's average, with six of them being middle-income economies (Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, Nigeria, Lesotho, and Kenya), while the other four are low-income countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Burundi).Five out of 13 SSA countries with the levels of bank regulation that were below the group's average are middle-income economies (Côte d'Ivoire, Eswatini, Angola, South Africa, and Namibia), while the remaining eight are low-income countries (Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, and Madagascar).Despite having fewer middle-income economies registering the above-average degree of overall bank regulation during period 2008-2017 than in the period 1995-2007, the stringency of bank regulation was still higher in the middle-income SSA economies than in the low-income SSA countries.
Finally, 10 out of 23 SSA countries exhibited the above-average levels of overall bank regulation over the entire period (1995-2017), with six of them (Botswana, Lesotho, Ghana, Mauritius, Nigeria, and Kenya) coming from the middle-income group, while the other four (Uganda, Malawi, Burundi, and Tanzania) are part of the low-income group.Five of the 13 SSA countries that recorded the levels of overall bank regulation that were below the group's average are middle-income economies (Eswatini, Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa, Angola, and Namibia), while the other eight are low-income SSA countries (Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar).Therefore, the bank regulatory environment was a little more stringent in middle-income SSA countries than in low-income SSA economies during the period 1995-2017.

Conclusion
The role played by bank regulation in promoting financial stability, hence economic growth and development, cannot be overstated.This is even more important in the SSA region where the financial sector in most countries is dominated by the banking industry.Given that the bank regulation environment has been changing over time in these economies, this paper has discussed the dynamics of bank regulation during the period before the 1990s and post 1990s and described the trends in bank regulatory measures between 1995 and 2017.
Before the 1990s, bank regulation in the majority of SSA countries was inadequate and this led to multiple occurrences of banking crises.As a result, many countries introduced the financial sector reforms from the late 1980s that included major adjustments in the banking regulatory and supervisory frameworks.Almost all the countries in the SSA region implemented the Basel I accord, while others later adopted higher standards of the Basel II and Basel III.Moreover, most of these economies have aligned themselves with the international financial reporting standards, but a few have adopted the deposit insurance schemes.
In both low-income and middle-income SSA economies, the bank regulatory environment became more stringent over time during the review period, driven by increased restrictions on bank entry barriers and ownership structure, as well as the introduction of macroprudential policies in the case of the former, while in the case of the latter, it was influenced by more restrictions on bank ownership structure and capital regulation requirements, as well as the adoption of macroprudential policies.But generally, the bank regulatory environment was slightly more stringent in middle-income than in low-income SSA economies over the period under consideration.

Bank ownership of non-financial Firms
To what extent can banks own and control non-financial firms?[Unrestricted=1=a bank may own 100 percent of the equity in any nonfinancial firm; Permitted=2=a bank may own 100 percent of the equity of a nonfinancial firm, but ownership is limited based on a bank's equity capital; Restricted=3=a bank can only acquire less than 100 percent of the equity in a nonfinancial firm; and Prohibited=4=a bank may not acquire any equity investment in a nonfinancial firm whatsoever] 1-4

Non-financial firm ownership of banks
To what extent can non-financial firms own and control banks?[Unrestricted=1=a nonfinancial firm may own 100 percent of the equity in a bank; Permitted=2=unrestricted with prior authorization or approval; Restricted=3=limits are placed on ownership, such as a maximum percentage of a bank's capital or shares; and Prohibited=4=no equity investment in a bank.] 1-4

Non-bank financial firms owning banks
The extent to which non-bank financial firms may own and control banks?[Unrestricted=1=a nonbank financial firm may own 100 percent of the equity in a bank; Permitted=2=unrestricted with prior authorization or approval; Restricted=3=limits are placed on ownership, such as a maximum percentage of a bank's capital or shares; and Prohibited=4=no equity investment in a bank.]1-4

Securities Activities
To what extent can banks engage in the following activities: a) Securities?b) Insurance?c) Real estate?[Unrestricted=1=full range of activities can be conducted directly in the bank; Permitted=2=full range of activities can be conducted, but some or all must be conducted in subsidiaries; Restricted=3=less than full range of activities can be conducted in the bank or subsidiaries; and Prohibited=4=the activity cannot be conducted in either the bank or subsidiaries; for each.] Source(s): Own computation using data from Barth et al. (2001Barth et al. ( , 2004Barth et al. ( , 2008Barth et al. ( , 2013)) Note(s): The parenthesis gives the year of completion of the survey; A tick ( ) shows that the data is available; A dash (-) shows that the data is unavailable, and the previous or subsequent available survey data is used instead.
Cerutti et al. (2017).But due to the unavailability of banking acts in many of the selected SSA countries during the period prior to 2000, the state of the macroprudential policies observed in 2000 under Cerutti et al. is assumed to have prevailed from 1995.Given that Eswatini is missing in the data compiled by Cerutti et al. , the Financial Institutions' Legal Notices No. 157 and 159 of 2001 by the Government of Eswatini (SwazilandGovernment, 2001), which introduced the concentration limits and limits to foreign currency loans, respectively, are used as sources.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Trends in bank regulatory indices in the selected low-income SSA countries

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Trends in bank regulatory indices in the selected middle-income SSA countries

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Average bank regulatory measures in the selected low-income and middleincome SSA countries

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Average bank regulatory measures in the selected low-income and middleincome SSA countries (continuation)

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Sum of averages of bank regulatory measures in the selected SSA countries

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Sum of averages of bank regulatory measures in the selected lowincome and middle-income SSA countries prohibited from entering through: a) Acquisition?b) Subsidiary? c) Branch?d) Joint Venture? [Yes=1; No=0; for each] 0-4 Entry into banking requirements Are the following legal submissions required to obtain a banking license: a) Draft bylaws?b) Intended organization chart?c) Financial projections?d) Financial information on main potential shareholders?e) Background/experience of future directors?f) Background/experience of future managers?g) Sources of funds to be disbursed in the capitalisation of new bank?h) Market differentiation intended for the new bank?[Yes=1; No=0; for each] questions: a) Is it risk-weighted in line with Basle guidelines?b) Does the ratio vary with a bank's credit risk?c) Does the ratio vary with market risk?d) Before minimum capital adequacy is determined, which items are deducted from capital: i) Market value of loan losses?ii) Unrealized securities losses?iii) Unrealized foreign exchange losses?[Yes=1; No=0; for each] ) Are the sources of funds to be used as capital verified by authorities?[Yes=1; No=0] b) Can assets other than cash/government securities be used to increase capital?c) Can borrowed funds be used?[Yes=0; No=1; for b) and c)] 0-3

Table 2 : Bank regulatory indices in the selected low-income SSA countries Countries
Starting with the entry barrier index, it generally increased over time in most of the low-income SSA countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo).While the index only increased between 2008 and 2010 in Tanzania, it remained the same over time in Uganda, and it had a slight decline in Malawi between 2008 and 2010.Overall, the entry barrier index recorded the group's average score of 0.61 in the period 2008-2017, compared to that of 0.56 during the period 1995-2007.Over the entire period, only three countries registered the entry barrier mean scores that were above the group's average score of 0.58, namely, Tanzania (0.64), Uganda (0.63), and Malawi (0.61).However, the index experienced a little variation relative to other bank regulatory indices during the period under consideration.
Barth et al. (2001Barth et al. ( , 2004Barth et al. ( , 2008Barth et al. ( , 2013))arth et al. ( , 2008Barth et al. ( , 2013)),Cihak etal.(2013), Anginer et al. (2019), and Cerutti et al. (2017).Note(s): All indices are normalised to one.When it comes to the ownership structure index, it increased over time in Burundi, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, while it only increased between 2008 and 2010 in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, and declined in Madagascar in 2008.The index group's average score rose from 0.60 to 0.67 between the periods 1995-2007 and 2008-2017, respectively.From 1995 to 2017, all the selected low-income SSA countries recorded the group's mean score of 0.63 in the ownership structure index, with Tanzania, Burundi, and Uganda being the only countries with the following above-average mean scores, respectively: 0.74, 0.73, and 0.71.In comparison with other bank regulatory measures, the index exhibited moderate variation over time.Furthermore, the activity restriction index experienced a downward trend over time in Burundi and Malawi, but an upward trend in Burkina Faso before falling to the 2003 levels in 2008.In Benin, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, the index only increased between 2004 and 2007.Additionally, it increased in Madagascar and Uganda in 2008 and declined sharply in 2012, while it fell in Tanzania in 2008 but increased sharply in 2012.In general, the group'Tanzania, where it increased in 2008 and remained the same afterwards.The group's mean score of the index declined from 0.68 in the period 1995-2007 to 0.60 during the period 2008-2017.Between 1995 and 2017, all the selected lowincome SSA countries recorded the capital regulation mean score of 0.65, and the

Table 3 : Bank regulatory indices in the selected middle-income SSA countries Countries
Mauritius, and Namibia, and declined in Ghana but between 2001 and 2007.Its group's mean score increased from 0.67 in the period 1995-2007 to 0.68 during the period 2008-2017.Between 1995 and 2017, all the selected middle-in- In the case of the ownership structure index, it trended upwards in most of middle-income SSA economies (Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, and South Africa), while it experienced a downward trend in Eswatini and Namibia and a flat trend in Côte d'Ivoire.The index group's average score increased from 0.59 to 0.65 during the periods 1995-2007 and 2008-2017, respectively.Between 1995 and 2017, all the selected middle-income SSA countries recorded the group's mean score of 0.62 in the ownership structure index, with Eswatini, Lesotho, Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire being the economies having the following aboveaverage mean scores, respectively: 0.78, 0.73, 0.67, and 0.63.In relation to other bank regulatory indices, the index experienced a higher variation over time.When it comes to the activity restriction index, it experienced a downward trend in many of the middle-income SSA economies (Angola, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Mauritius, and South Africa) but an upward trend in Botswana, Kenya, and Nigeria.However, it trended upwards in Botswana, Kenya, and Nigeria and exhibited a flat trend in Côte d'Ivoire (but with an increase between Additionally, the capital regulation index experienced an upward trend in Angola, Botswana, and Eswatini, while it remained relatively high in Kenya (between 2001 and 2011), Nigeria (between 2008 and 2011), and South Africa (between 2004 and 2007).Nonetheless, the index trended downwards in Côte d'Ivoire, Le-sotho,

Table A2 : World Bank's bank regulation surveys for the selected SSA countries
Country name Country code Survey I (1999) Survey II (2003) Survey III (2007) Survey IV (2011) Survey V (2019)