Non-performing loans: new rules and a loan sale market for banks

Ennouamane Yatim unpacks, for Alphabourse, the two reforms that will change how Moroccan banks manage non-performing loans. At the end of 2025, these loans stood at MAD 102.3 billion.

The first reform is Bank Al-Maghrib’s circular No. 1/W/2025. It applies from 1 January 2027 and creates a new class of “sensitive” loans. It also broadens the definition of default and tightens the rules on restructured loans, with transition periods of 3 to 10 years. For the Financial Services Advisory Partner at Baker Tilly in Morocco, part of the rise in reported non-performing loans would come from the new method rather than from a real deterioration in credit quality. Banks could absorb the impact if it stays phased in, possibly with more modest dividends.

The second reform is draft law No. 02-26, which sets a framework for selling these loans to specialised players. He sets out what an active market would require, which investors could enter it and what safeguards borrowers would need. In his view, the first deals would involve “older, well-provisioned portfolios.”