Nigerian banks are getting leaner and more profitable, but not all of them are getting safer at the same pace, a new BusinessDay review of half-year results shows.
The review, which applies the CAMEL framework — a standard tool that grades banks on Capital, Asset quality, Management, Earnings and Liquidity across the four tier two banks — Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, FCMB Group, Sterling HoldCo, and Wema Bank, shows a sector broadly getting stronger but tells four very different stories underneath the surface.
The data reveals that Wema Bank posted the sharpest turnaround of the group, while Ecobank, the pan-African lender, carries the one number in this scorecard that stands out for the wrong reason: a loan book that has grown steadily riskier.
The ScoreCard
On a composite score built from all five CAMEL components, Wema Bank comes out on top, followed by Sterling Financial Holdings, then FCMB Group, with Ecobank last.
