Nigerian banks have plenty to get excited about in this year’s Africa ranking, which comprises the continent’s top 400 lenders by Tier 1 capital. Last year, Nigeria’s lenders made combined pre-tax profits of $499m. In the latest ranking, that figure has soared to $3.7bn, underscoring their recovery from the country’s financial crisis of 2009, which forced the government to bailout several lenders and nationalise three.
Of the three institutions that the state took over, and which it hopes to privatise in the next few years, two of them have entered the ranking for the first time since they were restructured and rebranded. Mainstreet, previously called Afribank, made a pre-tax profit of $150m, amounting to a hefty return on capital (ROC) of 40%. Keystone, which used to be called Bank PHB, has a bigger balance sheet than Mainstreet ($2.5bn versus $2bn), but made far smaller pre-tax earnings of $18m.