The drive to expand into Africa had to be carefully calculated by banks because while it presented a good growth story, it could ruin their credit profiles if they expanded too aggressively, a report by rating agency Fitch suggested on Friday. Fitch said expanding in Africa could enhance South African banks’ earnings prospects in the longer term as developing a pan-African franchise would compensate for the local subdued credit growth. South Africa’s saturated lending market and weakened growth prospects had sent banks searching for markets to grow in Africa and the global financial crisis meant the search was limited to Africa rather than overseas. - Londiwe Buthelezi