•Second behind Egypt on The Banker’s rating
• 52% of top 100 regional banks record shortfall in assets
Despite the prolonged currency crisis that has eaten deep into Nigerian companies’ asset valuation, Nigerian banks are rated high on the 2024 African Business Magazine’s and The Banker’s top 100 rankings.

Eight Nigerian banks made the list in the just-released African Business Magazine rating. With a capital base of $1.9 billion, First Bank of Nigeria leads the Nigerian list and emerges 15th on the composite list.

FirstBank is followed by Access Bank and Zenith Bank, which came 16th and 17th respectively on the regional list, according to the report. United Bank of Africa (UBA) Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Ecobank, Union Bank and FCMB also make the list of leading lenders.

As in previous years, South Africa’s Standard Bank Group maintains its position as the continent’s top bank just as the National Bank of Egypt comes second for the fourth consecutive year.

“Dramatic declines in Nigeria’s naira currency compared to the US dollar affect the rankings in this year’s table since banks report their figures in domestic currencies and the research team compiling the rankings convert into USD either at the date of the results or another date,” the report notes.

In the case of The Banker’s assessment, nine Nigerian banks made the list. Nigeria trails behind Egypt, which has 10 banks on the index, which measures asset size, profitability, capital base and other quantitative indicators.

The South African banks on the list are seven while Morocco has eight in total as against Ethiopia’s five. The Nigerian brands on The Banker’s list are the big five – Access Bank, FirstBank, GTBank UBA and Zenith – plus Standard IBTC Holdings, FCMB, Fidelity Bank and Standard Chartered Bank of Nigeria.

Among the Nigerian brands on the list, only UBA moved up the ladder, from 19th in 2023 to 18th in the latest ranking. Zenith Bank, which topped the Nigerian list, dropped from 10th to 14th.

According to The Banker, besides Afreximbank, which came fourth, the top five are South African banks – Standard Bank Group, FirstRand, ABSA Group and NedBank Group.

“The picture painted by The Banker’s Top 100 African Banks for 2024 is similar to last year. While the immediate impact of the war in Ukraine on Africa’s key markets has faded, currency weakness and broader economic challenges have curtailed the performance of lenders in markets such as South Africa and Nigeria, with banks in Morocco and, to a lesser extent, Egypt, providing a counterweight,” The Banker states in its analysis.

The report says profitability continues to uptick with an aggregate pre-tax profit of 18.2 per cent for ranked institutions while 71 of the institutions “finishing the year in the black” Local currency weaknesses, it states, severely hit balance sheets in dollar terms with 52 institutions seeing asset bases decrease during the year just as 41 see a fall in tier 1 capital.