The dominance of South African Banks in he sub-Saharan Africa region is under threat. For the second year in a row, Nigeria’s banks have soared up the global league tables and are knocking on the door of the more established ‘blue-blood’ brands of South Africa.

Buoyed by central bank governor Charles Soludo’s 2005 minimum capital requirement legislation, Nigeria’s banks have gone from strength to strength.

The total Tier 1 capital of Nigerian banks in the Top 1000 has more than doubled to $11.29bn in 2008’s rankings from $5.38bn in 2007. It takes Nigeria’s share of the sub-Saharan pie to 34% of total Tier 1 capital, up from 24% in 2007. South Africa’s share of the pie has fallen from 71% last year to just 62% in 2008.

New entries among the world’s Top 1000 banks are Platinum-Habib Bank and Access Bank. In terms of growth, it is Access Bank that has impressed the most. In 2007, it did not even feature in the Top 1000 World Banks, and yet this year it enters the league at number 359, with Tier one capital of $1.43bn.

Other impressive performers this year include Oceanic Bank, which shot up the rankings from 875th in the world in 2007, with Tier 1 capital of $297m, to 310th in the world today, with Tier 1 capital of $1.75bn.

Guaranty Trust Bank also performed well. It leaped 371 places in the global rankings to 369th, with Tier 1 capital of $1.38bn, up from $406m last year. United Bank for Africa also made good headway in the rankings. It is now the 392nd biggest bank in the world with Tier 1 capital of $1.25bn. This is up from 876th place last year, when it had just $296m in Tier 1 capital.

The next step for Nigeria’s banks is to convert such phenomenal capital growth into profits. This year’s figures show that despite such enormous growth, return on capital for the sector has actually fallen from 21.9% last year to 18.6% this year. In South Africa, however, return on capital leaped from 38% to 42%.

South African banks’ rankings remained relatively static in global terms, with FirstRand Bank the only one to have made any significant headway. It leapfrogged its domestic competitors Investec and Nedbank to become the second biggest bank in sub-Saharan Africa, up from fourth place last year. Standard Bank retained its top spot with Tier 1 capital growth of $1.5bn to leave it with just over $8bn at 106th in the world.

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