Nigerian Banks in Top Global Ranking

Fri, Jul 11, 2014
By publisher
4 MIN READ

Business

Thirteen Nigerian banks make the list of 1000 leading global banks published by The Banker magazine in its 2014 edition

|  By Anayo Ezugwu  |  Jul. 21, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT

THIRTEEN Nigerian banks have been listed among the leading 1000 global banks published in The Banker magazine, a subsidiary of the Financial Times Group, in its 2014 edition. The Nigerian banks that made the ranking based on Tier-1 capital are Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, First Bank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, Fidelity Bank and Ecobank Nigeria.

Others are Skye Bank, First City Monument Bank, Diamond Bank, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria and Union Bank of Nigeria. The report, which was released on Friday, July 4, said banks in the world, for the first time since the global financial crisis, returned profit of $920 billion, which is 23 percent more than their previous peak of $786 billion achieved in 2007 before the financial crisis.

The report underlines Nigeria’s financial sector’s leading position in Africa as no other African country has up to 13 banks in the Top 1000 World listing of banks. According to the report, Zenith Bank ranked top in Nigeria at 293 with Guaranty Trust on number 415, FirstBank on number 424, Access Bank on 532, United Bank for Africa on 539 and Fidelity Bank was placed number 622.

The report said profit on capital of three Nigerian banks that are not foreign-owned subsidiaries had also increased. The banks are FirstBank, which had its profit on capital increased to 25.32 percent from 25.13 percent; Access Bank whose profit jumped from 21.19 percent to 21.24 percent while that of  First City Monument Bank rose from 15.77 percent to  15.87 per cent.

Brain Caplen, editor of the magazine, said the 23 percent increase in profit of global banks from 2007 was good news but that the better news was that capital had also increased at a reasonable pace whereas assets had stayed flat. This, according to him, meant that returns on capital were only slightly improved but that the hope was that this upturn was more sustainable than the last one. Caplen disclosed that a large proportion of the profit was from China, about 32 percent of the total which is more than the next three highest profit countries of USA, Japan and Canada combined.

Of the 25 top banks in Africa from the ranking, the top eight are from Nigeria, the largest economy in the continent, while the United Bank for Africa is the only Nigerian bank in the top 10 highest movers in Africa. In all, Africa has 31 banks in the Top 1000 World Banks 2014 with 13 from Nigeria representing 41.94 percent. The 31 African banks in the ranking are from nine countries namely Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco and Togo.

Globally, Philip Alexander, senior editor of the magazine, stressed that banks in the 2014 ranking are stronger than ever as the level of capital held by them continues to accelerate, with the minimum Tier 1 capital required to enter the Top 1000 World Banks now fast approaching $400 million. He said this has almost doubled since the 2005 ranking.

The Banker, a publication of Financial Times Newspaper, which is regarded as the most influential newspaper in the world, is a global financial intelligence magazine published since 1926. It is the definitive publication that provides guide to bank ratings and analysis globally and the definitive reference on international banking for finance experts, governments, chief finance officers, chief executive officers, Central Bank Governors, finance ministers, and other decision makers globally.

According to The Global Capital Markets Surveys, GCMS, the only independent media benchmarking study available in the capital markets industry and which provides insight into who reads what at the world’s financial institutions, among monthly finance titles globally, The Banker is number one monthly finance title read globally, in capital markets, Europe, the Middle East, Africa regions, emerging markets and banks as well as financial institutions in the world.

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