The marine and blue economy, entertainment and arts, as well as the hospitality sectors, have been identified as key beneficiaries of Nigeria’s ongoing banking sector recapitalisation.
This was revealed in the newly released fourth edition of Proshare’s Tier 1 Banks Report, titled “Getting Bigger, Braver and Dominant: The Class of 2025,” launched on Wednesday.
In response to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new capital requirements, commercial banks are actively raising funds to meet the 2026 compliance deadline.
The report emphasized that banks must be imaginative, agile, and adaptable to support the Federal Government’s vision of a $1 trillion economy by decade’s end. It noted that revitalising the banking sector over the next five years will be crucial to achieving this goal. However, it stressed that local banks must reframe Nigeria’s 46 sectors into 14 strategic sub-economies, as identified by Proshare researchers.
“With increasingly larger equity bases and untroubled by liquidity and the cost of bank deposits, banks are expected to find more creative ways of offering medium- to long-term financing options to emerging growth sectors as they rebalance their lending portfolios.
“Proshare analysts believe that subeconomies that may benefit from the recapitalisation of banks include, but are not limited to, the Marine and Blue Economy, the Entertainment and Arts Economy, the Hospitality and Real Estate Economy, and the Mineral Mining and Energy Economies,” part of the statement accompanying the report read.
The report also introduced the Proshare Bank Strength Index, a scientifically developed model that aggregates key banking metrics. Based on the index, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, Access Corporation, FirstHoldCo, Zenith Bank, United Bank for Africa, and Guaranty Trust Holding Company were ranked as Tier 1 banks.
ETI took the top spot on the index due to improvement in its operations in francophone West Africa and a few Anglophone countries, excluding Nigeria. ETI’s 67.11 per cent asset growth was a significant push factor that improved its ranking.
As part of its recommendations, the report argued that certain factors will separate Nigeria’s banking sector from the rest, and they include “Zoning in on the behavioural habits of different corporate and retail customers will be a key factor in service delivery excellence, utilising AI as a significant tool for product and service design. Remaining agile and flexible regardless of corporate size will enable leading banks to meet evolving customer expectations. In the new banking reality, elephants must dance or learn to.
“Coopetition with fintechs will distinguish the winners from the losers in the money market, as the digital agility of fintechs will offer customers the frontend convenience they seek. Concurrently, the backend rigour of banks in the lending process will guarantee high-quality loan portfolios and sound credit decisions. However, this may raise the question of who truly owns the customer: the bank or the fintech? The jury is still out on this matter. Strong arguments exist for both types of lending institutions.
“The age of artificial intelligence will change the banking landscape, making deposit and loan services a routine digital entry of codes. The loan approval process will be linked to a customer’s cash-to-cash cycle, assessed for risk and reliability, or payment based on their past transaction history stored in the encrypted data cache of a bank or fintech’s cloud storage. The decoupling of many financial decisions from human biases may improve the credit process exponentially, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on.”
In his opening remarks, the Founder/Chairman, Proshare Nigeria, Olufemi Awoyemi, said, “For the country to grow between seven and eight per cent and for the banking system to push towards new frontiers of balance sheet size, I believe it requires what I have called a ‘GSM moment’ or a market-creating burst of economic activity. We saw this happen with the General System for Mobile technological revolution, which started in Nigeria between 2000 and 2001.”
He noted that the Tier 1 Bank Report indicates Nigerian banks had raised over ₦13 trillion in new share capital by mid-2025. This capital boost has resulted in significantly stronger Capital Adequacy Ratios, reduced Cost of Risk, expanded asset bases, higher buffers against non-performing loans, and relatively lower Cost-to-Income Ratios.
