Access Holdings announced it will reduce equity stakes in some of its foreign subsidiaries after the Central Bank of Nigeria capped Nigerian banks’ investments in overseas banking operations at 10 percent of shareholders’ funds.
Chief Executive Roosevelt Ogbonna told investors the matter was flagged by the central bank under Section 19 and that the group has been given a 12-month timeline to comply. Ogbonna said the firm is in active discussions with the regulator and will rebalance parts of its foreign ownership structure while maintaining operations across its international network.
The timing comes after a string of 2025 deals that expanded Access’s footprint: a 74.9 percent acquisition of Standard Chartered’s Gambian unit for N9.5 billion, the purchase of Standard Chartered’s consumer and business banking business in Tanzania for N14 billion, and a 76 percent stake in AfrAsia Bank in Mauritius via Access Bank UK for N611.1 billion. Those investments helped push total assets up 24.2 percent to N15.6 trillion and loans and advances to customers up 16.1 percent to N13.3 trillion.
Access closed 2025 with gross earnings of N5.5 trillion, a 13.3 percent increase, and fees and commissions rising 40.9 percent year-on-year. Customer deposits rose 23.4 percent to N34.6 trillion, while the cost-to-income ratio improved to 51.7 percent from 56.7 percent a year earlier. The group said the banking business still accounted for 97 percent of group revenue and that Nigeria contributed 62 percent of gross earnings, down from 65 percent in 2024, as the rest of Africa and international operations increased their shares to 25 percent and 30 percent respectively.
Those gains came alongside strain: rising impairment charges linked to loan forbearance exposures, and a regulatory hurdle that delayed dividend payments for the 2025 financial year despite board approval of both interim and final dividends subject to regulatory clearance. The company said it maintained sufficient capital and liquidity buffers to support dividend payments once the central bank’s conditions are resolved.
Ogbonna said Access has already cured other regulatory constraints. He told investors that the limits related to Section 7.1 of the CBN Guidelines for Financial Holding Companies were remedied by a private placement carried out towards the end of 2025. At the same time, he stressed management’s priorities: enhancing earnings quality, improving asset productivity and driving sustainable returns as the group navigates the remediation timetable.
The friction is straightforward. Access’s recent acquisitions are the very assets that must be examined under Section 19 subsection 8, which limits investment in foreign banking subsidiaries to 10 percent of shareholders’ funds. Rebalancing to meet that cap within 12 months could force the group to shrink stakes in businesses it only recently bought or restructure ownership in ways that would alter valuation, governance and local operating plans.
Access said it will actively engage with the Central Bank of Nigeria to find solutions that preserve its international presence while meeting the 10 percent limit. The company also pointed investors to wider industry developments — for example, central bank moves on retail fees and merchant costs and warnings about cyber threats — as part of a changing operating landscape (see Central Bank removes Bank Fee for naira cards and shifts merchant costs to businesses Forex Factory: Weak yen and higher oil drag central banks into a tougher phase Cbn Alerts Fake Emails: Central Bank warns public as cyber threats rise
The crucial question now is whether Access can rebalance holdings without undercutting the international growth that drove its 2025 results; Ogbonna’s pledge to remediate within the 12-month window and to keep lines of communication open with the regulator will determine whether the group can both obey the rule and preserve the strategic gains bought at N9.5 billion, N14 billion and N611.1 billion respectively.
For Roosevelt Ogbonna, the outcome will show whether Access can reconcile an aggressive cross-border expansion with the central bank’s new limit — and in doing so, reshape what Nigeria’s biggest international banking group will look like next year.
