The World Bank’s 2020 International Debt Statistics2 has designated SSA as the region with the fastest-growing debt levels in the world, the pace of increase raising concerns about debt sustainability on the continent. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), about 40% of countries on the continent are currently at distressed levels.
However, at least some degree of aggregation is normally necessary as the causes of financial instability are often common to all banks. It is unlikely to be the occasional failure of one bank that triggers a crisis but rather a shock to the financial system as a whole, caused, for example, by an earlier asset price boom and/or lending boom.