The Central Bank of Nigeria has granted operating licenses to three new financial institutions in the country. According to updated records for financial institutions posted on its website, the apex bank approved TAJ Bank Limited as a non-interest bank on July 3, 2019.
The other two financial institutions are Titan Trust Bank Limited and Globus Bank Limited.
Titan Trust Bank Ltd was registered in December 2018 while Globus Bank Limited was registered July 10, 201, according to CBN records. The two commercial banks have their addresses in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The approval of the new banks is coming off the recent announcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria that it is planning a bank recapitalization due to the depreciation of the naira.
The CBN governor had said during the unveiling of his agenda for the next five years that the recapitalisation of banks had become imperative as their current capital could no longer finance large transactions.
He said, “In the next five years, we intend to pursue a programme of recapitalising the banking industry so as to position Nigerian banks among the top 500 in the world.
“Banks will, therefore, be required to maintain a higher level of capital, as well as liquid assets in order to reduce the impact of an economic crisis on the financial system.
“Recall that it was Governor (Chukwuma) Soludo in 2004 that did the last recapitalisation we had. He moved the capitalisation from N2bn to N25bn. And I must commend those efforts because it resulted in positioning Nigerian banks not only in Africa but among the top banks in the world in terms of capitalisation.
“It also helps to increase the banking industry’s capacity to take on large transactions. And those are some of the things we badly need today.
“So if you relate N25bn with 2004 exchange rate which was about N100 (to a dollar), N25bn was about $250m. Today, if you relate N25bn at N360 (to a dollar) you will see that it is substantially lower than $75m.
“So what we are trying to say is that the recapitalisation has weakened and there is a need for us to say it is time to recapitalise the banks again.
“It’s a policy thrust which would be discussed at the committee of governors’ meeting and of course, the framework for the recapitalisation of Nigerian banks would be unfolded for the whole world in due course.”
