The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has finally confirmed the licensing of three new banks. This is revealed in the information obtained from the website of the apex bank.
According to the section of CBN’s website containing the list of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and financial holding companies operating as of July 23rd, 2019, Titan Trust Bank Limited and Globus Bank Limited have been added.
The list also indicates that the regulator has issued a Non-Interest Banking license with regional authorisation to TAJ Bank Limited. With the latest information, the commercial banks operating in the country are now 23, from the initial 21. Also, non-interest banks are now two.
With the latest development, the number of commercial banks with national authorization now stands at 11. Note that Banks with national authorisation are banks with a capital base of N25billion and are allowed to operate in all states of the federation but barred from having offshore operations.
According to sources, Globus bank limited obtained its regional banking license in 2019 and begun operations on May 2, 2019. The executive director of Globus Bank Limited is Elias Igbinakenzua. Igbinakenzua has had stints as an Executive Director of Zenith Bank and Access Bank respectively.
Titan trust bank was established in 2018 but officially obtained its license in April 2019 as a national bank and started operations. The Executive director is Adaeze Udensi. The bank’s operations include SME banking, Digital banking and Commercial banking
The latest announcement made by the Central Bank suggests more banks may soon be licensed by the CBN.
Just as the apex bank has revealed the plan to recapitalise the Nigerian Banks again, the big take away is that the CBN may be planning to issue one or two more licenses so as not to drastically reduce the number of banks in the country.