The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that 14 banks in the country have fully met the new capital requirement in the ongoing recapitalisation exercise, with five months left for the completion of the exercise.
The Governor of the central bank, Mr Yemi Cardoso, confirmed the development while briefing journalists after the 302nd meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Abuja on Tuesday. The bank reduced the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50 basis points from 27.5 per cent to 27.0 per cent after inflation cooled for five straight months.
The apex bank had introduced a new minimum capital base requirement for banks in late 2023, with tiers depending on licence type.
Before then, the last major bank recapitalisation exercise in Nigeria was in 2004, when the CBN raised the minimum capital requirement for all banks from N2 billion to N25 billion under the governorship of Mr Charles Soludo, who is now the Governor of Anambra State.
This was a significant increase that led to a major consolidation in the banking sector, as the number of banks was reduced from 89 to 25 through a series of mergers and acquisitions.
In the current recapitalisation exercise, commercial banks with international authorisation now have a new capital requirement of N500 billion.
Commercial banks with national authorisation have N200 billion as the capital base, and commercial banks with regional authorisation have N50 billion.
Merchant banks have a requirement of N50 billion, non-interest banks (national) at N20 billion, and non-interest banks (regional) at N10 billion.
Among the Tier-1 banks, GTCO recently announced the completion of the exercise after it injected a fresh equity of N365.85 billion into its banking subsidiary, GTBank, through a rights issue.
Access Bank raised about N351 billion through a rights issue, pushing its capital base well beyond the required threshold for international banks, while Zenith Bank has also surpassed the target, growing its capital to around N614.65 billion after a rights issue and public offer.
Further, Ecobank Nigeria has met the recapitalisation level for national banks, while Lotus Bank and Jaiz Bank have both fulfilled the requirements for non-interest banks. Wema Bank completed a N150 billion rights issue that qualifies it as meeting the set standard, pending final CBN confirmation.
Also, Stanbic IBTC has reached the minimum benchmark while Providus Bank, Premium Trust, and Greenwich Merchant Bank are also confirmed to have attained their required capital levels.