Nigeria’s biggest lender, Access Holdings, is stepping up efforts to meet the regulatory conditions for the resumption of dividend payment, after pausing cash rewards to shareholders for the 2025 financial year, its chairman said on Wednesday.
The financial institution’s inability to declare a dividend for 2025 was not a profitability issue, as it posted record N743 billion in net profit for the year, but rather resulted from regulatory constraints, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, the chair of the board of directors, stated at its annual general meeting in Lagos.
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“I did not say inability to pay, I said to share,” he told shareholders, noting that Access Holdings recorded earnings of more than N5 trillion and total assets exceeding N50 trillion in 2025, both record figures for the group.
“Without a doubt, those results do not speak to an institution that cannot pay a dividend. Of course, we can pay a dividend,” he added.
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Mr Aig-Imoukhuede further explained that the limitation stemmed from the regulatory compliance requirements imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), not from new banking regulations.
“Between the time that I joined the board of Access Holdings in 2024 and now, there has been no new central bank regulation that pertains to the issue of dividends,” he said.
Last June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a directive, suspending banks still benefiting from the regulatory forbearance introduced during the COVID-19 lockdowns from paying dividends to shareholders.
Access Bank (the group’s flagship commercial banking subsidiary), Zenith and First Bank were among the major lenders affected by the order.
The regulator said the suspension will stand until affected banks have fully exited the regulatory forbearance, and their capital adequacy and provisioning levels are independently verified to have fully aligned with prevailing standards.
Mr Aig-Imoukhuede said the CBN had earlier disclosed that the use of the power to restrict dividend distribution would be adopted to bring banks to the 100 per cent compliance range.
According to him, Access Bank still has one outstanding compliance issue, which is the regulation that requires banks to limit investments in foreign banking subsidiaries to 10 per cent of shareholders’ funds.
“CBN says come into compliance with this requirement and ensure that you take this stipulation very seriously. Until you’re in compliance, you cannot pay dividends,” he said.
The chairman clarified that the law does not prohibit Nigerian banks from setting up foreign subsidiaries, nor has the bank been instructed to divest any of its offshore operations.
He noted that while Access Holdings’ non-banking subsidiaries generate sufficient profits to support dividend payments, the CBN views the holding company and its banking subsidiary as a single entity for dividend purposes.
On that score, if Access Bank is unable to pay a dividend, the CBN will extend the restriction to the holding company, he added.
He said the group is working with regulators in Nigeria and other jurisdictions to resolve the outstanding compliance issue and expects to achieve compliance within the year.
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