First Bank, GT Bank, Zenith Others Make Banker Magazine Top 1000 Banks in The World

  Some of Nigeria’s financial institutions have been recognised as being part of the top 1,000 banks in the world by the Banker Magazine, part of the Financial Times of London. 13 Nigerian banks made the list with Zenith Bank (ranked #293), GT Bank (#415) and First Bank (#424) coming ahead of other Nigerian Banks. Others included in the list are Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, Fidelity Bank, Ecobank, Skye Bank, First City Monument Bank, Diamond Bank, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria and Union Bank of Nigeria. According to a release by the Country Representative of Nigeria for the publication, Mr. Kunle Ogedengbe, Access Bank was number 532, United Bank for Africa ranked 539 and Fidelity 622. It revealed that the profit on capital of three Nigerian banks that were not foreign-owned subsidiaries increased. This includes First Bank which has its profit on capital increased by 25.32 per cent from 25.13 per cent, Access Bank from 21.19 per cent to 21.24 per cent and First City Monument Bank 15.77 per cent from 15.07 per cent. Editor of the magazine, Mr. Brain Caplen, noted that the 23 per cent increase in profit of global banks from 2007 “is good news but the better news is that capital has also increased at a reasonable pace whereas assets have stayed flat.” “This means that returns on capital are only slightly improved but the hope is that this upturn is more sustainable than the last one,” he said. Mr. Caplen disclosed that a large proportion of the profit is from China – about 32 per cent of the total which is more than the next three highest profit countries of USA, Japan and Canada combined. United Bank for Africa is the only Nigerian bank in the top 10 highest movers in Africa.