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Globus Bank is expected to continue its profitability streak this year after the Lagos-based lender more than doubled its pre-tax income in 2024.
Elias Igbinakenzua, chief executive officer of Globus Bank is betting on operational efficiency and cautious growth strategy to power earnings.
He is cautiously optimistic that the lender’s combination of disciplined lending and in-house technology is built for sustained growth.
“We are confident profitability will continue this year,” Igbinakenzua told BusinessDay in an exclusive interview.
The bank’s gross earnings rose to N142 billion in 2024, up from N67 billion in 2023. Profit before tax jumped to N55.78 billion, more than double the N23 billion posted a year earlier, while total assets expanded to about N1.6 trillion.
Discipline, not luck
Globus, which began operations in late 2019, has maintained a zero non-performing loan (NPL) ratio for six straight years, an unusual record in Nigeria’s banking sector. Igbinakenzua credits this to a cautious approach that prioritises governance over speed.
“We are still at zero NPL after six years, we don’t have a single bad loan just yet,” he said. “That’s because we have been very deliberate in picking those we lend to. Whether it’s MSMEs or whether it’s commercial banking or corporate, we are very deliberate.”
All credits require approval at board level, a process that can be slower but has insulated the loan book from defaults that have weighed on several mid-tier banks. By contrast, some rivals of Globus in the mid-tier segment saw profit growth of between 25 and 40 percent last year, far short of Globus’ leap.
Capital ahead of the curve
Globus has also crossed the N200 billion capital requirement set by the Central Bank of Nigeria, well before the March 2026 deadline. The raise was fully taken up internally, without new investors.
“We have raised the entire money that we need. We even returned some to shareholders; everything happened from within,” Igbinakenzua said.
At the same time, constraints like the 50 percent cash reserve ratio and slow adoption of open banking are dampening sectoral credit growth. Igbinakenzua is calling for reforms to unlock greater lending dynamics.
“With open banking, account opening and transactions will be quicker, driving more volumes through the system,” he said.
Betting on tech
The bank has developed most of its digital systems in-house, including customer apps and security tokens, with a 50-person IT team. It has rolled out features such as mobile banking without data and AI integration. The lender now operates 43 branches across Nigeria and is targeting presence in every state capital before its tenth anniversary.
The road ahead
Globus Bank’s performance sets it apart in a landscape where many competitors are still navigating the recapitalisation shuffle. As other mid-tier lenders are considering merging due to tight monetary policies and the apex bank’s recapitalization, Globus’ conservative underwriting and tech-driven model could position it as a template for profitable expansion and evidence that doubling revenue need not come at the expense of stability.
Igbinakenzua is clear that domestic consolidation comes first.
“Why am I rushing when I have not covered the market I have at home?” he asked. “Globus is still in the early chapters of our story.”
Analysts say the bank’s performance sets it apart from peers in the recapitalisation cycle, but the challenge will be sustaining profitability under high funding costs and liquidity pressure. For now, Globus is betting that its mix of conservative credit and homegrown technology will keep the numbers rising.
