Fidelity Bank, First Bank and First City Monument Bank (FCMB) are the first three banks leading as the best-performing commercial banks in Nigeria in the Q3 of 2022.
An analysis of the banks’ equity and financials shows that the 13 banks made the sum of N298.84 billion as profit before tax between July and September of 2022, showing an increase of 29.9 per cent compared to N228.54 billion recorded the year before.
The banks remained strong despite solid headwinds, in which Nigeria’s GDP is slowing to 2.25 per cent from 3.54 per cent in the previous quarter and 4.03 per cent in the same quarter of 2021.
The banks witnessed a 5 per cent increase in customer deposits during the period under review to stand at N43.68 trillion as of September 2022 from N41.61 per cent as of June 2022. Four of the 13 banks recorded positive growth in their share price in the third quarter of this year in the local equities market.
The 13 banks recorded an average cost-to-income ratio of 64.96 per cent in the period under review, compared to 69.11 percent in the same period last year.
The National Bureau of Statistics said that the banks recorded slowed growth, saying that the banking sector slowed from 20.06 per and 25.5 percent recorded in the second quarter of 2022 and 2021, respectively, to 12.03 percent during the period under review.
NBS reports that this is the slowest quarterly growth since the first quarter of 2021 when the economy was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
