Business
Travellers have been stranded as the dollar shortage hits banks
Travellers have been stranded as the dollar shortage hits banks
Glamtush reports that Nigerians are finding it increasingly difficult to access the United States dollar at the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official rate for eligible transactions.
According to Daily Trust findings, the worse affected are those travelling abroad who are experiencing delays in accessing Business Travel Allowance (BTA), Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and monies to pay for medicals and others.
Parents are also affected as they are finding it difficult to access the dollar for remittances of school fees and upkeep allowances for their children.
Forces behind the shortage
The investigations revealed that it is extremely difficult to access the dollar because the demand far outweighs supply, forcing some banks to extend the request period for PTA/BTA from two weeks to eight weeks.
But other sources said the CBN had tightened the processes of getting the dollar because some unpatriotic Nigerians have been abusing the process.
A source said investigations by the apex bank showed that many people had no plan to travel anywhere or to remit money abroad for legitimate purposes but yet forge papers and apply for the foreign currency only for them to hoard it or sell it at the parallel market.
Recall that the CBN had deployed an electronic Form ‘A’ to expedite applications for PTA/BTA, medicals, education and other remittances.
The CBN assured Nigerians that all legitimate requests for foreign currency for eligible transactions would be fully met at the official exchange rate.
However, Stanbic IBTC Bank recently sent a message to its customers stating that it requires six to eight weeks before it can process the request for dollars.
“To serve you better, please be informed that we now require six to eight weeks to process your FX needs for international school fees, upkeep and medical payments. This will enable us to review your requests in line with regulatory requirements and ensure that we can source for FX to fulfil them,” it stated.
A visit to a branch of Polaris Bank on Gimbiya Street in Abuja and First Bank in Asokoro showed that customers have been in the waiting queue for more than 3 weeks.
In Kano, many students and people on medical and business trips looking for official forex from banks narrated that they have been experiencing difficulties in getting dollars since the introduction of the new strategy.
They alleged that there were middlemen always working within the banks who were complicating the process thereby leading to difficulties.
Travellers narrate ordeal
Abdullahi Ahmad who had finished his preparations and the requirements to travel to Dubai for medicals said he could not get the $4, 000 he applied for over two weeks.
“I have only two weeks for my Dubai Visa to expire and yet I didn’t get the dollar from my bank. When I contacted my elder brother, he then contacted a bank manager, who later promised to give me $4,000 at the end of this week. But that is not enough, she (the bank manager) said I have to pay N340, 000 as a kickback to be able to get the money,” he said.
He said although he accepted to pay that amount, he was not sure of getting the money as his visa expiration date was fast approaching.
A marketer at the BDC market in Kano, who chose not to be named, said the banks have crippled their businesses and forced the dollar to be scarce leading to the high exchange rate in the parallel market.
He alleged that the banks now only give dollars to people who add a huge amount of money, adding that it has led to the hike in the price.
We’re battling fake applications – Banks
A top source in one of the banks in Lagos, who does not want his name in print, said the scarcity has led to rationing.
“It is an open secret that we have shortage but we are trying as much as possible to meet genuine demand of people. So, we prioritise from the most critical as we can’t meet all the demand. We look out for the most urgent need,” he said.
He said the banks also have to battle fake applications in some instances.
“Many of the applicants are not going anywhere but they use different methods to apply for the dollar,” another banker said.
“You see them forging medical records, fake admission letters and others all in an effort to deceive us and get the scarce currency,” he said.
Asked if there was any way to solve the problem, he said, “The most important thing is to encourage export so that our earnings would increase. The federal government and the security agencies must also put some measures to track and prosecute offenders.”
However, Mavis Ikpeme via her Twitter handle, @mavisikpeme, lamented the difficulties in getting PTA/BTA from banks, noting that Nigerians were forced to patronise the black market.
“You can’t even file for PTA/ BTA from banks. Nigerians travelling are forced to patronise the black market. You can hardly cash USD from a dorm account too. Is the CBN not aware of these atrocities perpetrated by banks? These are part of the issues?” she said.
Another user, Olayinka Biu, accused banks of deliberately frustrating genuine applicants for PTA while making dollars available for Bureaux De Change.
“The actual problem is genuine applicants for PTA are not getting it. With excuses of dollars not being available or the queue being so long it couldn’t get to your turn before your travel date. Meanwhile, BDC agents are getting dollars directly from these banks,” she posted via her handle, @olayinkaBiu
We’re tackling the menace – CBN
The CBN has however assured that it was tackling the scarcity nightmare, even as it advised against succumbing to the speculative activities of some players in the exchange market.
The Director, Corporate Communications at the CBN, Mr Osita Nwanisobi said the apex bank remained committed to resolving the foreign exchange issues confronting the nation and as such has been working to manage both the demand and supply side challenges.
While admitting that there was huge demand pressure for foreign exchange to meet the needs of manufacturers as well as those for the payment of tuition, medical fees and other invisibles, Nwanisobi said the CBN was concerned about the international value of the naira, adding that the monetary authority was strategising to help Nigeria earn more stable and sustainable inflows of foreign exchange in the face of dwindling inflows from the oil sector.
Business
BUA Foods Records 91% Surge in Profit After Tax, Hits ₦508bn in 2025
BUA Foods Records 91% Surge in Profit After Tax, Hits ₦508bn in 2025
By femi Oyewale
Business
Adron Homes Unveils “Love for Love” Valentine Promo with Exciting Discounts, Luxury Gifts, and Travel Rewards
Adron Homes Unveils “Love for Love” Valentine Promo with Exciting Discounts, Luxury Gifts, and Travel Rewards
In celebration of the season of love, Adron Homes and Properties has announced the launch of its special Valentine campaign, “Love for Love” Promo, a customer-centric initiative designed to reward Nigerians who choose to express love through smart, lasting real estate investments.
The Love for Love Promo offers clients attractive discounts, flexible payment options, and an array of exclusive gift items, reinforcing Adron Homes’ commitment to making property ownership both rewarding and accessible. The campaign runs throughout the Valentine season and applies to the company’s wide portfolio of estates and housing projects strategically located across Nigeria.
Speaking on the promo, the company’s Managing Director, Mrs Adenike Ajobo, stated that the initiative is aimed at encouraging individuals and families to move beyond conventional Valentine gifts by investing in assets that secure their future. According to the company, love is best demonstrated through stability, legacy, and long-term value—principles that real estate ownership represents.
Under the promo structure, clients who make a payment of ₦100,000 receive cake, chocolates, and a bottle of wine, while those who pay ₦200,000 are rewarded with a Love Hamper. Payments of ₦500,000 attract a Love Hamper plus cake, and clients who pay ₦1,000,000 enjoy a choice of a Samsung phone or a Love Hamper with cake.
The rewards become increasingly premium as commitment grows. Clients who pay ₦5,000,000 receive either an iPad or an all-expenses-paid romantic getaway for a couple at one of Nigeria’s finest hotels, which includes two nights’ accommodation, special treats, and a Love Hamper. A payment of ₦10,000,000 comes with a choice of a Samsung Z Fold 7, three nights at a top-tier resort in Nigeria, or a full solar power installation.
For high-value investors, the Love for Love Promo delivers exceptional lifestyle experiences. Clients who pay ₦30,000,000 on land are rewarded with a three-night couple’s trip to Doha, Qatar, or South Africa, while purchasers of any Adron Homes house valued at ₦50,000,000 receive a double-door refrigerator.
The promo covers Adron Homes’ estates located in Lagos, Shimawa, Sagamu, Atan–Ota, Papalanto, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Osun, Ekiti, Abuja, Nasarawa, and Niger States, offering clients the opportunity to invest in fast-growing, strategically positioned communities nationwide.
Adron Homes reiterated that beyond the incentives, the campaign underscores the company’s strong reputation for secure land titles, affordable pricing, strategic locations, and a proven legacy in real estate development.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, Adron Homes encourages Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to take advantage of the Love for Love Promo to enjoy exceptional value, exclusive rewards, and the opportunity to build a future rooted in love, security, and prosperity.
Business
Why Nigeria’s Banks Still on Shaky Ground with Big Profits, Weak Capital
*Why Nigeria’s Banks Still on Shaky Ground with Big Profits, Weak Capital*
*BY BLAISE UDUNZE*
Despite the fragile 2024 economy grappling with inflation, currency volatility, and weak growth, Nigeria’s banking industry was widely portrayed as successful and strong amid triumphal headlines. The figures appeared to signal strength, resilience, and superior management as the Tier-1 banks such as Access Bank, Zenith Bank, GTBank, UBA, and First Bank of Nigeria, collectively reported profits approaching, and in some cases exceeding, N1 trillion. Surprisingly, a year later, these same banks touted as sound and solid are locked in a frenetic race to the capital markets, issuing rights offers and public placements back-to-back to meet the Central Bank of Nigeria’s N500 billion recapitalisation thresholds.
The contradiction is glaring. If Nigeria’s biggest banks are so profitable, why are they unable to internally fund their new capital requirements? Why have no fewer than 27 banks tapped the capital market in quick succession despite repeated assurances of balance-sheet robustness? And more fundamentally, what do these record profits actually say about the real health of the banking system?
The recapitalisation directive announced by the CBN in 2024 was ambitious by design. Banks with international licences were required to raise minimum capital to N500 billion by March 2026, while national and regional banks faced lower but still substantial thresholds ranging from N200 billion to N50 billion, respectively. Looking at the policy, it was sold as a modern reform meant to make banks stronger, more resilient in tough times, and better able to support major long-term economic development. In theory, strong banks should welcome such reforms. In practice, the scramble that followed has exposed uncomfortable truths about the structure of bank profitability in Nigeria.
At the heart of the inconsistency is a fundamental misunderstanding often encouraged by the banks themselves between profits and capital. Unknown to many, profitability, no matter how impressive, does not automatically translate into regulatory capital. Primarily, the CBN’s recapitalisation framework actually focuses on money paid in by shareholders when buying shares, fresh equity injected by investors over retained earnings or profits that exist mainly on paper.
This distinction matters because much of the profit surge recorded in 2024 and early 2025 was neither cash-generative nor sustainably repeatable. A significant portion of those headline banks’ profits reported actually came from foreign exchange revaluation gains following the sharp fall of the naira after exchange-rate unification. The industry witnessed that banks’ holding dollar-denominated assets their books showed bigger numbers as their balance sheets swell in naira terms, creating enormous paper profits without a corresponding improvement in underlying operational strength. These gains inflated income statements but did little to strengthen core capital, especially after the CBN barred banks from using FX revaluation gains for dividends or routine operations. In effect, banks looked richer without becoming stronger.
Beyond FX effects, Nigerian banks have increasingly relied on non-interest income fees, charges, and transaction levies to drive profitability. While this model is lucrative, it does not necessarily deepen financial intermediation or expand productive lending. High profits built on customer charges rather than loan growth offer limited support for long-term balance-sheet expansion. They also leave banks vulnerable when macroeconomic conditions shift, as is now happening.
Indeed, the recapitalisation exercise coincides with a turning point in the monetary cycle. The extraordinary conditions that supported bank earnings in 2024 and 2025 are beginning to unwind. Analysts now warn that Nigerian banks are approaching earnings reset, as net interest margins the backbone of traditional banking profitability, come under sustained pressure.
Renaissance Capital, in a January note, projects that major banks including Zenith, GTCO, Access Holdings, and UBA will struggle to deliver earnings growth in 2026 comparable to recent performance.
In a real sense, the CBN is expected to lower interest rates by 400 to 500 basis points because inflation is slowing down, and this means that banks will earn less on loans and government bonds, but they may not be able to quickly lower the interest they pay on deposits or other debts. The cash reserve requirements are still elevated, which does not earn interest; banks can’t easily increase or expand lending investments to make up for lower returns. The implications are significant. Net interest margin, the difference between what banks earn on loans and investments and what they pay on deposits, is poised to contract. Deposit competition is intensifying as lenders fight to shore up liquidity ahead of recapitalisation deadlines, pushing up funding costs. At the same time, yields on treasury bills and bonds, long a safe and lucrative haven for banks are expected to soften in a lower-rate environment. The result is a narrowing profit cushion just as banks are being asked to carry far larger equity bases.
Compounding this challenge is the fading of FX revaluation windfalls. With the naira relatively more stable in early 2026, the non-cash gains that once flattered bank earnings have largely evaporated. What remains is the less glamorous reality of core banking operations: credit risk management, cost efficiency, and genuine loan growth in a sluggish economy. In this new environment, maintaining headline profits will be far harder, even before accounting for the dilutive impact of recapitalisation.
That dilution is another underappreciated consequence of the capital rush. Massive share issuances mean that even if banks manage to sustain absolute profit levels, earnings per share and return on equity are likely to decline. Zenith, Access, UBA, and others are dramatically increasing their share counts. The same earnings pie is now being divided among many more shareholders, making individual returns leaner than during the pre-recapitalisation boom. For investors, the optics of strong profits may soon give way to the reality of weaker per-share performance.
Yet banks have pressed ahead, not only out of regulatory necessity but also strategic calculation.
During this period of recapitalization, investors are interested in the stock market with optimism, especially about bank shares, as banks are raising fresh capital, and this makes it easier to attract investments. This has become a season for the management teams to seize the moment to raise funds at relatively attractive valuations, strengthen ownership positions, and position themselves for post-recapitalisation dominance. In several cases, major shareholders and insiders have increased their stakes, as projected in the media, signalling confidence in long-term prospects even as near-term returns face pressure.
There is also a broader structural ambition at play. Well-capitalised banks can take on larger single obligor exposures, finance infrastructure projects, expand regionally, and compete more credibly with pan-African and global peers. From this perspective, recapitalisation is not merely about compliance but about reshaping the competitive hierarchy of Nigerian banking. What will be witnessed in the industry is that those who succeed will emerge larger, fewer, and more powerful. Those that fail will be forced into consolidation, retreat, or irrelevance.
For the wider economy, the outcome is ambiguous. Stronger banks with deeper capital buffers could improve systemic stability and enhance Nigeria’s ability to fund long-term development. The point is that while merging or consolidating banks may make them safer, it can also harm the market and the economy because it will reduce competition, let a few banks dominate, and encourage them to earn easy money from bonds and fees instead of funding real businesses. The truth be told, injecting more capital into the banks without complementary reforms in credit infrastructure, risk-sharing mechanisms, and fiscal discipline, isn’t enough as the aforementioned reforms are also needed.
The rush as exposed in this period, is that the moment Nigerian banks started raising new capital, the glaring reality behind their reported profits became clearer, that profits weren’t purely from good management, while the financial industry is not as sound and strong as its headline figures. The fact that trillion-naira profit banks must return repeatedly to shareholders for fresh capital is not a sign of excess strength, but of structural imbalance.
With the deadline for banks to raise new capital coming soon, by 31 March 2026, the focus has shifted from just raising N500 billion. N200 billion or N50 billion to think about the future shape and quality of Nigeria’s financial industry, or what it will actually look like afterward. Will recapitalisation mark a turning point toward deeper intermediation, lower dependence on speculative gains, and stronger support for economic growth? Or will it simply reset the numbers while leaving underlying incentives unchanged?
The answer will define the next chapter of Nigerian banking long after the capital market roadshows have ended and the profit headlines have faded.
Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: [email protected]
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