Nigeria’s top ten banks on the NGX reported a combined pretax profit of N2.7 trillion for the six months ended June 2025.
Although this represents a 12% decline from the N3.16 trillion recorded in the same period last year, it still highlights the sector’s solid performance.
Profitability remains one of the most important measures of financial health and operational efficiency, an indicator that investors and analysts closely track to assess how well institutions are performing.
Pretax profit, in simple terms, shows how much a company earns after accounting for operating expenses, impairments, and other costs, but before taxes are deducted.
This article examines the performance of Nigeria’s top banks in their H1 2025 financial results, most of which have been published, except for Fidelity Bank, which has yet to release its numbers.
The focus here is on the pretax profit amount generated during the six-month period, rather than on year-on-year changes in performance.
With that context, here are the 10 most profitable Nigerian banks in the first half of 2025.
Access Holdings Plc sits comfortably in 5th place with a pretax profit of N320.5 billion, down 8.1% from N348.9 billion last year.
- Interest income surged 51% to N1.9 trillion, led by loans and advances to customers at N944 billion and investment securities at N857.9 billion.
After accounting for interest expenses of N1.05 trillion, net interest income rose 91.8% to N984.6 billion, before impairments of N230 billion brought it to N754.5 billion.
Net fee and commission income also improved to N237.6 billion, up 16.10%. Due to higher operating costs, the group delivered a N320.5 billion pretax profit, down 8.12%.
On the balance sheet, total assets expanded to N42.4 trillion, with retained earnings rising to N1.3 trillion.
