In most markets, one country's banks carry the foreign exposure
Foreign banks' claims on each country are published every quarter by the Bank for International Settlements, broken down by where the banks are headquartered. Read market by market, the exposure is rarely spread out.
In 63 of the 108 markets with a page on this site, the banks of one country hold 40% or more of all foreign banks' claims, at the end of March 2026.
Whose banks
| Whose banks | Largest foreign lender in | With 40% or more | Largest shares |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 37 | 27 | Central African Republic 95%, Rwanda 91%, Sierra Leone 91% |
| United States | 23 | 9 | Zambia 75%, Lesotho 66%, Haiti 60% |
| United Kingdom | 16 | 6 | Malawi 88%, Belarus 88%, Nepal 84% |
| Spain | 10 | 9 | Argentina 75%, Uruguay 57%, Colombia 55% |
| Austria | 8 | 4 | Montenegro 81%, Albania 77%, Bosnia and Herzegovina 43% |
| Japan | 5 | 1 | Myanmar 52%, Lao People's Democratic Republic 33%, Indonesia 29% |
| Italy | 3 | 3 | Croatia 55%, Serbia 48%, Moldova 44% |
| Portugal | 2 | 2 | Mozambique 94%, Guinea-Bissau 81% |
| Australia | 2 | 2 | Papua New Guinea 96%, Fiji 88% |
French banks are the largest foreign lender in 37 markets, and hold 40% or more in 27 of them. Spanish banks lead in 10, 8 of them in Latin America and the Caribbean.
What a corridor page adds
Each pair above has its own page: the exporting country's banks' claims on the market with their history back to 2005, its export credit agency's published position where this site can read it, and the development-bank contracts its suppliers have won there. The index is at /corridors/.
The figures are the BIS consolidated banking statistics on an ultimate risk basis: a loan guaranteed from elsewhere counts where the guarantor is. Named shares leave out banks whose figures are confidential, so a market's shares do not add to 100%.