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.
Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc ranked 2nd with a pretax profit of N600.9 billion, down 40.1% from N1 trillion in H1 2024.
On the top line, Interest income grew 31.4% to N789.4 billion, while net interest income rose 28.6% to N632.2 billion after expenses. Following impairments of N54.9 billion, net interest income stood at N577.2 billion.
Non-interest streams such as fee and commission income grew 33.7% to N135.1 billion, while trading and other income contributed a combined N108.8 billion.
Due to high operating costs, GTCO closed the period with N600.9 billion pretax profit, down 40.1%. On the balance sheet, total assets expanded to N16.6 trillion, with retained earnings rising 9.5% to N1.4 trillion.
