Citibank, Standard Chartered dominate Dollar inflows to Nigeria

Citibank, Standard Chartered, and Stanbic IBTC led the list of banks with the highest dollar inflows into the Nigerian economy in the first half of the year, statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.

Citibank attracted $889.9 million into the Nigerian economy in the first half of 2022, accounting for 28.6 per cent of the total capital importation recorded in the period under review.

Also, a total of $866.44 million was routed through Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, which represents 27.9 per cent of the total.

Stanbic IBTC followed with an inflow of $415.44 million, representing 13.4 per cent of the total inflows into Nigeria.

Interestingly, the top banks on this link are subsidiaries of international banks, Citibank Nigeria being owned by Citibank Overseas Investment Corporation, a subsidiary of Citibank N.A (USA). In the same vein, Standard Chartered is a subsidiary SC, which is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London.

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List of the other banks included Zenith Bank which attracted $221.26 million, Ecobank Nigeria got $152.75 million while Access Bank also attracted $101.14 million in the Nigerian economy in the first half of 2022.

First Bank of Nigeria attracted $90.48 million, Union Bank of Nigeria brought $88.96 million while FCMB and Rand Merchant Bank attracted $72.22 million and $70.4 million respectively.

Nigeria attracted $3.11 billion as foreign inflows in the first half of 2022, an 11.8 per cent increase compared to $2.78 billion received in the corresponding period of 2021.

When compared to the previous period, capital inflows declined by 20.7 per cent from $3.92 billion attracted in the second half of 2021.

Most of the funds that came into the economy were sourced from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Singapore, and the USA with $1.8 billion, $239.8 million, $203 million, and $162.3 million respectively, a possible reason why international banks ranked highest on the list of financial institutions in the country with the highest capital inflows.

Capital importation in the review period stood at $3.11 billion compared to $3.92 billion received in the second half of 2021.

Portfolio investments stood at $1.71 billion in the same period, representing 55.2 per cent of the total inflows, foreign direct investment (FDI) on the other hand, accounted for 9.7 per cent with $302.13 million inflows.

Other investment, which includes trade credit, loans, currency deposits, and other claims accounted for 35.1% of the total inflows with $1.09 billion inflows.