June 15, (THEWILL) – Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) has emerged as Nigeria’s highest-ranked Tier-1 bank in 2025, thereby disrupting the popular league of “Big Five”, also known as FUGAZ (First Bank, UBA, GTB, Access Bank and Zenith Bank), which dominated the premium class of financial services institutions.
In a recent Tier-1 banks report by Nigeria’s leading financial information platform, Proshare, entitled “Getting Bigger, Braver, and Dominant – The Class of 2025”, Nigeria’s banking sector saw a shift in 2024 as ETI dethroned Access Holdings Plc to become the country’s largest bank by total assets.
The Tier-1 banks ranking based on the Proshare Bank Strength Index (PBSI), which aggregates key banking metrics using a scientific and statistical model, identified ETI, ACCESSCORP, FIRSTHOLDCO, ZENITH BANK, UBA, and GTCO as Tier 1 banks.
The 2025 PBSI builds its model, with emphasis on five yardsticks:
(i)Capital adequacy and sizes, given the ongoing regulatory recapitalisation
(ii) Asset quality and growth as elevated yields and macroeconomic volatility necessitate a focus on loan asset quality, NPL ratios, and sustainable asset growth
(iii) Digital transformation as e-banking income as a proportion of gross earnings underscores digital integration and readiness
(iv) Profitability and efficiency, since cost-to-income ratio (CIR), net interest margin (NIM), and earnings growth reflect operational resilience
(v) Key governance metrics.
While ETI knocked core Nigerian banks off the top of the Tier-1 totem, much of ETI’s improvement came from operations in francophone West Africa and a few Anglophone countries, excluding Nigeria. Its 67.11 per cent asset growth was a significant push factor that improved its ranking.
The report also examined the banks’ recapitalisation efforts and their performances between 2023 and 2024 in meeting the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) capital threshold of common equity Tier-1 capital (CET 1), specifically N200bn for nationally licensed banks and N500bn for banks with international licenses. All Tier-1 banks are licensed for international operations.
However, Tier-1 borderline banks (the highest ranked Tier-2 banks) have also chosen to achieve N500bn share capital to compete aggressively in the emerging global and continental banking markets.
FIDELITY Bank falls into this category and it is expected to be a full-fledged member of the Tier 1 tribe by the end of the financial year 2025.
The report argues that certain factors will separate Nigeria’s banking sector best from the rest. These include:
a) 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.
b) 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 do so.
c)Co-opetition 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.
Ecobank’s total assets hit ₦43.3 trillion in 2024, a 67 percent increase from 2023, pushing it ahead of Access, which now holds ₦41.5 trillion after a 55 percent rise. This marks a big change from 2023 when Access was the top bank. Ecobank’s strong growth came from higher customer deposits, expanded lending and gains from its wide African network.
Together, the top five banks Ecobank, Access, UBA, Zenith, and First Holdco now control ₦171.6 trillion in assets, up 55 percent from the previous year.
The rest of the top 10 GTCO, Fidelity, FCMB, Stanbic IBTC, and Wema also showed strong growth, with assets rising between 34 percent and 60 percent.
The Proshare’s Tier-1 banks report argues that the now “bigger-sized” banks need to be imaginative, agile, and flexible if they are going to support the scaling up of the Nigerian economy into a US$1trn continental behemoth by 2030 as envisioned by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).
According to the report, scaling up banking sector activities over the next half decade will align with the growth aspirations of the FGN, but it would require local banks to deconstruct Nigeria’s 46 sectors into what Proshare researchers have identified as 14 sub-economies.
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 sub-economies 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.
A major factor in the banks’ transformation push is the role of technology. The deposit money banks have engaged in aggressive system upgrade to survive the stiff competition from the recapitlisation exercise. This is yielding fruits as captured in their last annual reports.
THEWILL recent findings showed that United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) came top in digital banking revenue among 10 selected Nigerian deposit money banks (DMBs), according to data from their audited FY 2024 financial statements.
The e-banking income includes revenue from electronic platforms, such as mobile applications, USSD channels, internet banking, ATM, PoS as well as other debit and credit card transactions.
The selected banks include UBA which raked in N284.7 billion in e-banking income during the FY 2024 against the sum of N157.1 billion which it recorded in the previous year, translating to an 85.9 percent increase.
It was followed by Access Bank with a total digital transaction fee of N178.61 billion which constitutes a 75.6 percent increase against N101.62 billion in FY 2023.
Zenith Bank pooled N80.05 billion in e-banking revenue in FY 2024 against N51.8 billion earned in the previous year which represents a 54.5 percent increase for the period.
FirstBank e-banking transaction income increased to N77.01 billion in FY 2024 from N66.34 billion in the previous year, representing a jump of 16.08 percent during the period.
Guaranty Trust Bank posted a total digital transaction revenue of N56.56 billion which represents a 38.5 percent increase from N40.82 billion it achieved in the previous year — ranking fifth among the Tier-1 banks, also referred to as the FUGAZ group.
The reports showed that Stanbic IBTC Bank posted a total e-banking revenue of N63 billion which is 11.1 percent higher than 56.7 billion it generated in the previous period.
Others are Wema Bank and Fidelity Bank which posted N14.1 billion and N7.02 billion against N7.3 billion and 4.02 billion in FY 2023, which translated to 93.2 percent and 72.9 percent respectively.
FCMB’s digital revenue declined by 22.83 percent from N17.69 billion in FY 2023 to N13.65 billion in the review period.
Sterling Bank’s N8.58 billion in FY 2023 was used for FY 2024 as it is yet to publish its FY 2024 results due to a transition in its core banking application, according to its parent company, Sterling Financial Holdings.
The push for migration to new core systems is driven by multiple factors, including security, cost management, and operational flexibility. Industry experts explained that security concerns are a major reason for the upgrade.
With cyber-attacks on the rise, banks are seeking more secure systems to protect customer data and financial information.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
