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Zenith Bank led Nigeria’s banking industry customer deposits growth to approach N50 trillion in 2022 amid a push by Fintech companies to nibble away at their market share.
Zenith Bank grew customer deposits by 38.6% to N8.97 trillion last year, the biggest surge among 12 major banks analysed by MoneyCentral.
This was followed by Access Bank where customer deposits rose 33% to N9.25 trillion and Fidelity Bank deposits up 27.4% to N2.58 trillion.
In total the 12 banks grew customer deposits 23.6% to N47.2 trillion.
Measures by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bring more people into the financial system have boosted the growth of fintech companies offering everything from digital banking to payments, investments and wealth management services.
The CBN’s failed naira redesign policy and move to limit the cash withdrawals by individuals in banks over the counter (OTC) to N100,000 a week, led to congestion in the networks of traditional bank helping to push more customers into the arms of fintechs like Palmpay and MTN’s MoMo Payment Service Bank (PSB).
Between October 2022 and February 2023, when the CBN said it will replace 200-, 500- and 1,000-naira notes with new ones, the value of mobile-money transactions jumped by a quarter to 2.5 trillion naira ($5.4 billion), according to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc.
PSBs are able to collect naira deposits, issue debit cards, operate electronic wallets and prepaid cards as well as have the opportunity to invest in some securities.
MTN’s MoMo PSB deposits held for MoMo customers surged by 432% to N6.68 billion in the first quarter (Q1), of 2023, according to data compiled by MoneyCentral.
Active mobile money (MoMo PSB) wallets also increased by 1.2 million in Q1 to 3.2 million. MTN had invested N16.4 billion in the MoMo PSB subsidiary as at year-end 2022.
Access Bank led the traditional deposit money bank in overall customer deposits which stood at N9.25 trillion as at year-end 2022.
This was followed by Zenith Bank at N8.79 trillion and UBA N7.82 trillion to make up the top 3.