THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday released the list of deposit money banks and financial holding companies operating in Nigeria.

According to the report, eight commercial banks with international authorisation that were operational as of December 31, 2019, included Access Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB), First Bank Nigeria Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, United Bank of Africa Plc (UBA) and Zenith Bank Plc.

It also showed that 11 commercial banks have national authorization and they were Citi Bank Nigeria Limited, Eco Bank Nigeria Plc, Heritage Bank Limited, Keystone Bank Lmited, Polaris Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, Standard Chartered Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Titan Trust Bank Limited, Unity Bank plc and Wema Bank Plc.

The CBN listed only three commercial banks with regional authorisation that were operational in Nigeria as of December 31, 2019. These banks included Suntrust Bank Nigeria Limited, Providus Bank Plc and Globus Bank.

However, Jaiz Bank Plc is the only non-interest bank with national authorisation on the list while Taj Bank Limited is listed as the only non-interest bank with regional authorisation.

For the merchant banks dealing with commercial loans and investments, CBN said five were operational as at the close of 2019.

They included Coronation Merchant Bank, FBN Merchant Bank, FSDH Merchant Bank, Nova Merchant Bank and Rand Merchant Bank.

As for institutions that have license to offer non-banking financial services such as insurance underwriting and investment advisory services which are the financial holdings companies, CBN said four were operational as at the close of 2019 which were FBN Holdings Plc, FCMB Group Plc, FSDH Holding Company and Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc.

The apex bank in August 2016, warned Nigerians against patronising unregistered international money transfer operators.

The ICIR contacted Isaac Okorafor, Acting Director of Communication at CBN for comment, but he was unavailable.

However, an official of the bank who did not want to be named because he is not allowed to talk to the media said the list was released for the purpose of guiding the public on banks they should do transactions with to avoid loss of funds and loss of investments.

“All financial service providers in Nigeria, just as in other jurisdictions, are required to be duly licensed in order to protect both customers and the financial system as well as to ensure the credibility of financial transactions,” Isaac Okorafor, acting Director of Communication at CBN  was reported as said in in 2016.