Includes special features of this country’s banking system and rules/laws that might impact U.S. business.
Last Published: 11/22/2019

Six state-owned banks dominate 95 percent of the commercial market, but Citibank, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Societé Generale, and other French and Arabian Peninsula country banks are active in Algeria as well. International money transfer services, such as Western Union, are also available.

The Khalifa Bank collapse in 2003 shook government confidence in the private banking sector, despite the flaws in state-owned banks. As a result, banking reform has progressed incrementally at best. Following the global financial crisis, the privatization of the flagship state-owned bank Crédit Populaire d’Algérie (CPA) was put on hold indefinitely.

Barriers on outward transfers and an antiquated domestic transfer system pose challenges for investment. Though the central bank has created a system to permit payments by check and credit cards, this system is still very new, and not many vendors have adapted it. Neither checks nor credit cards are common.  ATMs are installed at some locations including five-star hotels. Algeria remains a cash-based society. In late 2010, the Algerian government retroactively banned commercial loans from shareholders abroad made after July 2009.  
 

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