Access Holdings, Nigeria's largest lender, is intensifying efforts to satisfy regulatory requirements for resuming dividend payments after suspending cash rewards to shareholders for the 2025 financial year, its chairman stated on Wednesday.
The financial institution's inability to declare a dividend for 2025 was not due to profitability issues, as it recorded a net profit of N743 billion for the year, but rather resulted from regulatory constraints, said Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, chairman of the board of directors, at the annual general meeting in Lagos.
“I did not say inability to pay, I said to share,” he told shareholders, noting that Access Holdings achieved earnings exceeding N5 trillion and total assets surpassing 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.
Mr Aig-Imoukhuede further explained that the limitation stemmed from 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 CBN issued a directive suspending banks still benefiting from 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 stated that the suspension would remain until affected banks fully exit the regulatory forbearance, and their capital adequacy and provisioning levels are independently verified to align with prevailing standards.
Mr Aig-Imoukhuede said the CBN had earlier disclosed that restricting dividend distribution would be used to bring banks to full compliance. According to him, Access Bank still has one outstanding compliance issue: the regulation requiring banks to limit investments in foreign banking subsidiaries to 10 percent 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 establishing foreign subsidiaries, nor has the bank been instructed to divest any 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. Therefore, if Access Bank cannot 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.
