The top five banks have a shortfall of N1.5 trillion to meet the new minimum capital base announced yesterday by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN for international commercial banks.
In a statement yesterday, the CBN unveiled new minimum capital requirements for banks, raising the minimum capital base for commercial banks with international authorisation by 900 per cent to N500 billion from N50 billion.
Under the new minimum capital requirement, each of the top five banks namely Access Bank, FirstBank, GTBank, UBA and Zenith Bank must have N500 billion as a minimum capital base.
The CBN however said the minimum capital requirement is limited to paid-up capital and share premium.
Consequently, the five banks are supposed to have combined paid-up capital and share premium of N2.5 trillion.
Vanguard findings, based on the latest financial results of the bank showed that the combined paid-up capital and share premium of the top five banks amounted to N1.037 trillion, representing a shortfall of N1.472 trillion.
Based on the stipulation of the CBN, Access Corporation, the parent company of Access Bank has paid-up capital and share premium of N251.811 billion according to its 2023 full-year result released yesterday hence a shortfall of N248.189 billion.
FBN Holdings, the parent company of FirstBank has paid-up capital and share premium of N251.3 billion, hence a shortfall of N248.66 billion, according to its Q3’23 results.
The paid-up capital and share premium of GTHoldco, the parent company of GTBank stands at N138.186 billion as of Q3’23, hence a shortfall of N361.814 billion
UBA has paid-up capital and share premium of N115.815 billion, hence a shortfall of N384.185 billion according to its Q3’23
Zenith Bank has a paid-up capital and share premium of N270.745 billion, hence a shortfall of N229.255 billion.
