Nigeria’s tier-1 banks make N18.4 billion from account maintenance charges in Q1 2020

Adebayo Obajemu

Top banks in the country are smiling home from what many customers do not actually notice- maintainance charges.

The tier-1 banks —which comprised of First Bank, UBA, GTBank, Access Bank, and Zenith Bank (FUGAZ) — have generated a total of N18.4 billion from bank maintenance charges in Q1 2020.

This is a remarkable improvement compared to last year at the same period. The sum is 17.12% more than N15.6 billion that was generated by the five banks during the comparable period in 2019.

Below is the breakdown:

Zenith Bank Plc: N5.7 billion; Access Bank Plc: N3.9 billion; Guaranty Trust Bank Plc: N3.3 billion; First Bank Plc: N3.1 billion; United Bank for Africa Plc: N2.3 billion

In a recent  directive by the apex bank on bank charges, Nigerian banks are allowed to charge their customers a “negotiable” N1 per mille. What this translates to is that banks can charge N1 per N1000 debit transactions on current accounts. Banks’ account maintenance charges come in the form of COT (i.e., Commission on Turnover) which is a charge levied on customer withdrawals by their banks. In Nigeria, these charges are mainly applicable to current accounts.

“Current Account Maintenance Fee (CAMF): Applicable to current accounts ONLY in respect of customer-induced debit transactions to third parties and debit transfers/lodgments to the customer’s account in another bank. Note that CAMF is not applicable to Savings Accounts,” said part of the CBN directive