We investigate the impact of the recent rise of Pan-African banks, which are indigenous African banks with cross-border networks, on banking sector stability within the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). We contextualise this problem in terms of the long-standing unresolved controversy in the banking literature, between the competition-stability hypothesis and the competition-fragility hypothesis. We test the hypotheses using hand-collected bank-level data from all WAEMU countries for 2000–2017. We uncover new evidence that the increase in competition, engendered by the entry of Pan-African banks, is associated with an increase in banking stability as well as an increase in banking fragility – it all depends on the origin of banks in WAEMU. Specifically, the expansion of Pan-African banks into the WAEMU banking system is consistent with the competition-fragility hypothesis, while the presence of French banks in WAEMU supports both hypotheses. Overall, bank profit is the main mechanism through which competition is associated with an increase in banking fragility in WAEMU.

我们调查了近期泛非银行（拥有跨境网络的非洲本土银行）崛起对西非经济和货币联盟 (WAEMU) 内银行业稳定性的影响。我们根据银行业文献中长期未解决的竞争稳定性假设和竞争脆弱性假设之间的争议，将这个问题置于背景下。我们使用 2000-2017 年所有 WAEMU 国家手工收集的银行级数据来检验假设。我们发现了新的证据，表明泛非银行的进入导致竞争的加剧与银行业稳定性的提高以及银行业脆弱性的增加有关——这一切都取决于西非经联银行的起源。具体来说，泛非银行向 WAEMU 银行系统的扩张与竞争脆弱性假设一致，而法国银行在 WAEMU 的存在支持这两种假设。总体而言，银行利润是竞争与 WAEMU 银行业脆弱性增加相关的主要机制。