…as e-banking fees rise

Customers of nine leading commercial banks in Nigeria paid N120.18 billion as account maintenance fee in 2022. 

This represents a 23 percent year-on-year (YoY) rise when compared with N97.68 billion they paid in 2021.
Similarly, fees and commission paid for electronic banking in these banks rose YoY by 8.0 percent to N228.29 billion in 2022 from N209.74 billion in 2021.
The banks that took the monies are Zenith Bank, United Bank of Africa (UBA), Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Access Bank, Union Bank, Sterling Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Fidelity Bank and Unity Bank.
Data from the 2022 Financial Statements of these banks showed that the net fees and commission income of the banks stood at N841.28 billion in 2022, representing a growth of 19 percent YoY when compared to N701.2 billion in 2021.
Commenting on the development, the President, Bank Customers Association of Nigeria, BCAN, Dr. Uju Ogubunka, said that increase in account maintenance and electronic banking fees is based on the increase in bank customers deposits and if there is no occurrence of such, then there is an increase in banks lending to customers.
“It means that the banks are making more money from all of us whether rightly or wrongly because if you look at the transactions, transactions don’t just come out of the blues, they are based on resources available to those who are making transactions. How much did the deposit grow?
“If deposits do not grow as much as account maintenance and electronic banking fees and commission then you have a problem because if you don’t have revenue accruing to your customers which will reflect in the deposit level that you have, I don’t know where you are making that money from.
“It is only when your customers are making transactions based on the money they have that you can generate higher transaction income, otherwise you are just collecting customers’ money.

‘‘The alternative is that you are now lending more money to your customers so as to enable them to spend.
“So if you are giving them more loans or overdrafts and based on that they are spending more money than before, then you are collecting more fees and your transaction base from that angle is increasing. So your revenue is likely to increase from that kind of situation.’’
According to the Central Bank of Nigeriá, CBN, in its November 2022 economic report, consumer credit grew by 3.4 per cent to N2.45 trillion at the end of November from N2.3 trillion at the end of October 2022.
However, some of these banks recorded an increase in their customers’ deposits last year at faster rate. 

Zenith Bank’s deposits increased from N6.47 trillion in 2022 from N8.97 trillion in 2021. UBA also recorded a growth in customer deposits, rising from N6.36 trillion to N7.8 trillion.
Similarly, Fidelity Bank’s customer deposits grew to N2.59 trillion in 2022 compared to N2.025 trillion in 2021 and Stanbic IBTC customer deposits rose to N1.24 trillion in 2022 from N1.25 trillion in 2021.
Unity Bank  customers deposits also rose to N327.43 billion in 2022 from N322.285 billion in 2021.