Zenith Bank Nigeria Plc is now the second-largest bank in Nigeria by customer deposits crossing N4 trillion for the first time, and now next only to First Bank Ltd which remains the largest by customer deposits.
The bank has also now blown past Access Bank Plc which was in second place following the 2018 merger with Diamond Bank Plc.
First Bank remains the largest Nigerian bank by deposits with N4.2 trillion customer deposits an 8.2% rise from N3.9 trillion reported in December 2020.
Zenith Bank came second and for the first time crossing the N4 trillion mark to close the quarter at N4 trillion. This compares to N3.4 trillion as of December 2019 representing a 17.2 per cent rise in deposits.
Access Bank which was second at the end of 2019 with N3.4 trillion moved to third place after it gained just 8.9 per cent in new deposits to close at N3.99 trillion.
UBA performed the best in terms of growth rising 25.3 per cent from N2.7 trillion to N3.4 trillion only.
GT Bank remained bottom 5th with a deposit of N2.4 trillion representing a 19.5 per cent growth from the N2 trillion deposits reported at the end of 2019.
For several years commercial banks in Nigeria have scrambled for customer deposits seeing this as a sign of strength and domination of Nigeria’s burgeoning banking sector.
However, competition is less emphasized in recent years as the top 5 banks pull away from tier 2 banks.