1. Introduction
1.1 Background and Motivation
Despite extensive reforms in the financial sector in Sub Saharan Africa during 1980s and 1990s, with a view of
improving access to financial services to private agencies, financial depth in the sub-region has remained very
low and not improving over the years. Commercial bank performance has been poor characterized by low levels
of private credit, high interest rate spreads, high levels of non-performing loans, poor asset quality, operational
inefficiencies, among others (Panayiotis, et al., 2005).
The low financial depth of commercial banks would suggest investment and economic growth is still heavily
dependent on foreign savings in form of external finance. The World Bank (2006) acknowledged that there are
few signs of sustainable progress arising from financial sector and public enterprise reform. The report called for
more wide reforms in the financial sector to achieve higher efficiency in the banking sector. It is the growth and
efficiency of commercial banks in many countries that would be important to finance the desired economic
growth in the different segments of the economy.
With extensive information gap on commercial banking in SSA, This paper therefore examines the determinants
of commercial bank profitability in Sub-Saharan Africa, considering the effect of the variables related to bank
size, capital adequacy, liquidity risk, asset quality, credit risk, operational efficiency as on the prevailing
economic environment. The study is in response to what has been previously been proposed by different scholars
that there is need for more research and information on African commercial banks to inform policy decisions for
the sector improvements.