The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) freshly released 2025 annual report shows Group profit for the year came in at ₦136.44 billion, more than triple the ₦38.84 billion reported in 2024, according to the Summary Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements.
The standalone Bank, by contrast, posted a profit of ₦86.81 billion, down 47.6% from ₦165.69 billion in 2024.
Total assets grew 18.1% to ₦138.86 trillion, powered by a jump in external reserves and a near-quadrupling of “other assets,” while a new expense line — “monetary and financial stability expenses” of ₦1.24 trillion, which did not exist in 2024 — became the single biggest driver of a 431% surge in other operating expenses.
Group vs. Bank
The most striking feature of the 2025 results is the divergence between the Group (consolidated, including subsidiaries such as the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc, NIRSAL, and InfraCorp) and the Bank on a standalone basis.
At the Group level, 2024’s result was dragged down by a one-off ₦13.88 trillion loss on settled foreign-currency derivatives — swaps, forwards and futures unwound during the year — a legacy of the naira reforms and FX-market unification pursued since 2023.
That drag essentially disappeared in 2025 (down to just ₦21.6 billion), lifting net operating income even though gross operating income fell sharply as fair-value and revaluation gains normalized.
The Group additionally benefits from ₦37.1 billion in profit from equity-accounted associates (including Bank of Industry and NEXIM) and pays a modest ₦8.3 billion in tax at the subsidiary level — items the tax-exempt parent Bank does not carry.
The standalone Bank tells a cleaner story: operating profit fell from ₦165.69 billion in 2024 to ₦86.81 billion in 2025, a genuine decline once the 2024 derivative-settlement drag and basis differences are set aside, as operating expenses — particularly the new monetary and financial stability charge — outpaced the improvement in net operating income.
Income Statement Movement
Gold bullion gains nearly tripled to ₦1.79 trillion as the metal’s dollar price and CBN’s own reserve build both moved higher — the Bank’s monetary gold holdings rose to 689,318 troy ounces at a year-end indicative price of $4,319.37 per ounce, up from $2,624.39 a year earlier.
But unrealised FX revaluation gains, which had been the single largest income contributor in 2024 at ₦11.28 trillion, shrank more than 90% to ₦1.07 trillion as the naira’s depreciation against the dollar slowed relative to the prior year’s swings.
Currency issue expenses — the cost of printing, minting, processing and distributing banknotes, coins and the eNaira — rose 94.5% to ₦464.1 billion at the Group level (and even more sharply at the Bank level, to ₦579.2 billion from ₦315.2 billion), consistent with heavier currency-management activity during the year.
The ₦1.24 Trillion Line Nobody Saw in 2024
The single biggest swing in the cost base is a new expense line, “monetary and financial stability expenses,” which came in at ₦1.24 trillion in 2025 against zero in 2024 (Note 11).
That one line item accounts for roughly three-quarters of the ₦1.35 trillion increase in other operating expenses, which rose 431% to ₦1.66 trillion at the Group level.
The summary financial statements do not further disaggregate what specific activities sit inside this new charge, leaving open the question of whether it reflects a reclassification of costs previously booked elsewhere or genuinely new expenditure tied to the Bank’s financial-stability mandate.
The Balance Sheet: Bigger, and Reshaped
Total assets grew 18.1% to ₦138.86 trillion at the Group level (₦138.66 trillion for the Bank), from ₦117.60 trillion a year earlier.
External reserves — comprising convertible currencies, IMF reserve tranche and gold bullion — rose to ₦61.24 trillion, driven mainly by a ₦1.5 trillion increase in gold holdings (Note 15).
Other assets nearly quadrupled to ₦19.28 trillion, with the entire increase attributable to a single new item: a ₦13.71 trillion “Derivative and Foreign Exchange Revaluation Account” (DFERA) balance that did not exist on the 2024 balance sheet.
DFERA accumulates gains and losses on gold, settled derivatives and foreign-currency translation of monetary items, and its appearance as a large asset — rather than being run through the income statement or FX reserves as in prior years — is itself a footprint of the new Financial Reporting Manual.
On the liabilities side, CBN Instruments issued — short-term Open Market Operation bills used as a liquidity-management tool — more than doubled to ₦48.70 trillion.
The stock figure understates the scale of activity underneath it: the Bank issued ₦74.34 trillion of new bills during the year and redeemed ₦41.56 trillion, implying heavy, continuous churn in the OMO market rather than a single large placement.
Deposits, dominated by commercial banks’ reserve accounts (₦28.34 trillion, up from ₦26.20 trillion) and government accounts, rose a more modest 1.4% to ₦53.11 trillion.
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 freshly released 2025 annual report shows Group profit for the year came in at ₦136.44 billion){kind=link}