Central Bank of Nigeria - Today

Today

Currently, under the leadership of Lamido Sanusi, the bank's recent success is partially due to the rise in crude oil prices. The bank's use of capitalization has given more strength to the banking sector against an earlier failure by the central bank to control the fall of many merchant banks and commercial banks in the early 1990s. By 1990, the liberalizing agenda of an adopted Structural Adjustment Programme led to unprecedented growth in the banking sector.

The central bank was instrumental in the growth and financial credibility of Nigerian commercial banks by making sure that all the financial banks operating in the country has a capital base(required reserves). This help to make sure that bank customers just don't bare the loss alone, in the event of bank failures. However, this policy led to some Nigerian commercial banks to fail; some bank could not meet up with the capital base which was 25,000,000,000.00 Naira at the time. These banks that could not meet up had to fold up, while some that could not come up with the money on their own, had to merge with other banks in order to raise the money. This policy helped solidify the commercial banks of Nigeria, and made it impossible for individuals or organization without financial stability to operate a bank in the country. Today Nigeria has one of the most advanced financial sector in Africa, with most of its commercial banks having branches in other countries.

The Bank is active in promoting financial inclusion policy and is a leading member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. It is also one of the original 17 regulatory institutions to make specific national commitments to financial inclusion under the Maya Declaration during the 2011 Global Policy Forum held in Mexico. The CBN has ensured all Banks in Nigeria to have a uniform year end.