Nigeria’s financial services sector emerged as the country’s biggest foreign exchange consumer in the first quarter of 2026, absorbing $8.97 billion, even as the banking industry attracted $7.55 billion foreign capital during the period.
The figures point to an increasingly finance-driven flow of foreign capital and foreign exchange in Nigeria, coming as banks completed a two-year recapitalisation exercise designed to strengthen their balance sheets and deepen their capacity to finance the economy.
Data from the Q1 Central Bank of Nigeria’s quarterly statistical bulletin showed that financial services accounted for 55.2 percent of Nigeria’s total $16.25 billion FX utilisation in Q1, up sharply from a 44.4 percent share a year earlier.
The sector’s FX utilisation was also 116.6 percent higher than the $4.14 billion recorded in Q1 2025. The surge occurred alongside a sharp rise in capital importation, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Nigeria attracted $10.37 billion in capital importation in Q1 2026, representing an 83.8 percent increase from $5.64 billion in the same period of 2025 and 61 percent above the $6.44 billion recorded in the preceding quarter.
But the most striking feature of the inflows was their concentration in the banking industry. Banks attracted $7.55 billion, equivalent to 72.8 percent of total capital imported into Nigeria during the quarter.
The figure means that almost three out of every four dollars of foreign capital entering the Nigerian economy in Q1 went to the banking sector.
The…
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Read Full Article by Chinwe Michael at businessday.ng
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