Abundance is in the future, and what we know today constrains our capacity to know the opportunities which could be unlocked tomorrow. But as new knowledge systems emerge, new vistas of opportunities become evident.
Indeed, Nigerian banks are having some of their finest moments despite the amalgam of new species of financial service companies which are emerging. Simply, the fintechs have not paused the trajectories of relatively major banks.
Why is that the case? These fintech firms are “unpaid” channel players which are bringing new customers into the financial service sector. In other words, provided that only banks could offer bank accounts (yes, any “bank account” offered by a fintech company is connected to a BVN which means that the user already has a bank account with a traditional bank), banks will continue to capture value, no matter how little.
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Think about it: when startups provide services to some bank-neglected clusters of customers, most of those customers’ funds are later warehoused in banks. Indeed, most fintechs are working and bundling users into banks, and banks are having moments, across many indicators with huge profits, valuations, etc.
Zenith Bank just joined the trillion-naira club as its market cap has exceeded N1 trillion, sharing moments with Airtel Africa, MTN Nigeria, Dangote Cement, BUA Foods, and BUA Cement there. Congratulations to Zenith Bank.
Zenith Bank also advanced in the list of top 10 most valuable companies as compiled by Nairametrics using Q1 2023 result: “In dollar terms, the total valuation of the companies is around $31 billion (using N765/$1). This compares to $51.6 billion using the former exchange rate of around N467/$1”. Notice that Stanbic IBTC lost its space for Geregu Power.
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The total market valuation in dollar terms has reduced greatly, so the naira club members should increase their numbers, so that those with N1 trillion market cap will not be close to making Top 10, that is what playing big looks like.
As for fintechs, they can only earn margins, since it’s advisable to allow them to warehouse depositors funds without having banking license, it will create more problems than solutions, when depositors funds disappear.
For our mini big players in the capital market, only push-up is allowed…