Access Holdings is Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, PREMIUM TIMES Annual Banking Report reveals
Access Holdings took the top spot as Nigeria’s biggest lender by asset, according to PREMIUM TIMES 2025 Annual Banking Report’s ranking of banking institutions in Nigeria for 2024.
Two big lenders, comprising United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Zenith took the next positions, mirroring the continued dominant power of the three corporations, which have now led in that metric for two straight years.
The report, a yearly print publication of PREMIUM TIMES now in its fifth year, draws on the annual audited financial reports of the banks, tracking the trends, developments and key events in the banking industry in the previous year, while also bringing the financial performance of banks across major indicators under close scrutiny.
Factors, including capital raise programmes initiated in response to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive to banks to tremendously scale up core capital to new levels and an expansion in loans and advances, were among the chief drivers that led asset valuation up.
With the benchmark interest rate, at 27.5 per cent, touching its summit in many years, a pattern began to manifest in the asset portfolio of some banks, which reflected an inclination on their part to cash in on the elevated interest rate environment at all costs.
Against the norm that loans and advances make up the bulk of the assets of banks, considering that lending is the traditional function of banks, investment securities rather asserted themselves as the biggest contributor to the assets of a couple of lenders.
The reason – sky-high interest rates made yields on fixed income securities like bonds and treasury bills irresistibly attractive for investment, and the low-risk nature of government instruments, which dominate such securities, automatically made them, rather than loans, the preference of banks that were reluctant to take on more risks.
Total assets for Access Holdings jumped by more than half to N41.5 trillion from N26.7 trillion. UBA reported a 46.8 per cent leap to N30.3 trillion from N20.7 trillion, while Zenith posted a 47 per cent increase to N30 trillion from N20.4 trillion.
Access Holdings already ranked as the country’s biggest lender by revenue in 2024.
About Access Holdings
Access Holdings, which was incorporated in 1989 and commenced business the same year as a commercial bank under the name “Access Bank,” became a holding company in March 2022. It now has operations in banking, payments, pensions and insurance brokerage.
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The banking division has over 700 branches in 24 countries across three continents, with a customer base exceeding 63 million. Its three business segments encompass corporate & investment, commercial and retail.