Customers’ Deposits in Banks Rise 66% to N76.04 Trillion

By Nkiruka Nnorom

Call for proactive, not reactive fiscal policy

Customers’ deposit in top deposit money banks rose 66 percent Year-on-Year (YoY) to N76.04 trillion at the end of December 2023 from N45.81 trillion at the end of December 2022.

The rise in customers’ deposit is in spite rising  inflationary trend and other economic challenges in the country.

The banks are Zenith Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc, FBN Holdings Plc, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCo) Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc and Wema Bank Plc.

Others are Sterling Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, and FCMB Group Plc.

Vanguard analysis of data  from the banks’ financial statement for the full year 2023 shows UBA recorded the highest growth of 90.3 percent to N14.89 trillion against N7.83 trillion it recorded in 2022, followed by  Zenith Bank Plc, which recorded a 69 percent increase to N15.17 trillion from N8.98 trillion.

Access Bank emerged third on the list with 65.6 percent deposit growth to N15.32 trillion from N9.25 trillion in 2022. Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc ranked fourth with 65.5 percent increase to N2.07 trillion from N1.25 trillion, while GTBank emerged fifth with 65.2 percent deposit growth to N7.41 trillion from N4.49 trillion in the corresponding period in 2022.

Others are Wema Bank, which grew customer deposit to N1.87 trillion from N1.67 trillion in the same period in 2022, thus representing a 60.2 percent increase; FCMB Group recorded a 58.9 percent increase to N3.09 trillion compared to N1.95 trillion in the corresponding period in 2022; Fidelity Bank Plc achieved a 55.5 percent deposit growth to N4.02 trillion from N2.58 trillion, while FBN Holding Plc and Sterling Bank Plc, grew their customer deposit by 52.6 percent to N10.87 trillion and 9.4 percent to N1.33 trillion respectively.

Commenting, David Adonri, Vice Chairman, Highcap Securities, attributed the growth to increased confidence in the banks due to the termination of cash scarcity which had a multiplier effect on commerce.

He said: “I suspect that deposits by sub-national governments may have accounted for the astronomical growth of banks customer deposit in 2023 due to the huge jump in FAAC Allocations.

“Depositors’ confidence in banks also increased in 2023 due to the termination of cash scarcity which had a multiplier effect on commerce and hence enabled depositors to oil their bank accounts.

“Finally, financial transactions in the financial market goes through banks and with the big rally in the equities market and high yield in debt, investors had to deposit in their bank accounts to buy securities. Hike in interest rate also caused fixed deposits to rise.”

Going forward, he said that with banking recapitalization exercise in the horizon, hike in interest rate and more FAAC inflows, banks may still enjoy growth in deposit liabilities.

Source: Vanguard