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Zenith Bank reported only a slight rise in net profit and revenue for 2025 as interest income, its principal income source, grew at its slowest pace since 2021 while trading gains, which contributed as much as N1.1 trillion to gross earnings the year before, turned negative.
Post-tax profit for Nigeria’s second biggest lender by assets and market value saw a flattish growth of 0.7 per cent during the period, climbing to N1.04 trillion from N1.03 trillion, according to its audited accounts out on Tuesday.
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Turnover towed the same path, advancing by single digit from N4 trillion to N4.2 trillion.
The trend of relatively weak increase in interest income in percentage terms similarly played out in the results of tier-1 rival Guaranty Trust Holdings Company (GTCO), which last week also reported its smallest interest income jump in four years after net profit slid 15 per cent to N865.7 billion.
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It is perhaps a signal for the end of the road to the incredibly big bucks that Nigerian lenders earned from a flurry of interest rate hikes between May 2022 and November 2024, when the central bank adopted an hawkish monetary policy rate to tame galloping inflation in Africa’s most populous country.
In the year under review, the regulator held rates four times, cutting it once by just 50 basis points after indications that inflation had begun to cool.
Interest and similar income for Zenith Bank was up by 35 per cent at N3.7 trillion in the period under review. Net interest income, which shows how much banks earn from interest-bearing assets after accounting for related costs, expanded by 52.7 per cent to N2.6 trillion.
The financial institution made a provision of N742.2 billion as impaired charge on financial instruments, up from N657 billion a year ago. However, it reported an impairment credit of N578 million on non-financial instruments, in contrast to an impairment charge N1.8 billion one year prior.
Other operating income stood at N176.3 billion, in contrast to a loss of N206.8 billion in 2024, thanks to a surge in foreign currency revaluation gain.
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In March, the lender bared plans to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange, the same route GTCO went last July when it completed secondary listing in London, becoming the first Nigerian banking institution to do so. That same month, Zenith Bank opened a new branch in Manchester, UK, extending the international footprints of the lender, which has operations in Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.
Profit before tax jumped to N1.26 trillion from N1.33 trillion, while total assets advanced to N31.5 trillion from N30 trillion.
Also on Tuesday, the bank announced plans to pay a final dividend of N8.75 per share (N359.4 billion) in addition to an interim dividend of N1.25 earlier paid during the year.
The potential total dividend of N10 per share compares to the N5 paid for 2024. Shares in Zenith bank were up by 0.2 per cent as of 10:26 West Africa Time, following the news.
