Nigeria’s banking industry has contributed N168.4 trillion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2017 and 2020.
Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo made this disclosure in Abuja during the official commissioning ceremony of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Bankers House Abuja and the Alliance of African Institute of Bankers (AAIOB) Permanent Secretariat.
Osinbajo noted that the banking industry has exhibited resilience and growth in the face of severe challenges.
According to him, “despite several years of some of the most severe macroeconomic challenges, including the 2008 financial crisis, the oil crises that followed, and an unexpected pandemic, the Nigerian banking industry, owing largely to your outstanding professionalism, has continued to show incredible resilience and growth.”
The industry, he revealed, contributed “about N34.6 trillion to the country’s GDP in 2017, N37.8 trillion in 2018, N42.7 trillion in 2019 and N53.3 trillion in 2020.”
He also stated that “in 2021 African tech startups raised over $4billion in funding with over 564 startups across the continent solving critical problems in almost every sector.”
Nigeria, he said “accounted for 35 percent of this and today the country has six unicorns, tech companies valued at over 1 billion dollars. All of them started after 2015, and have grown between two recessions.”
Osinbajo stated that Nigeria is primed and ready for new depths of economic growth and development.
In his words, “with a population constituting the largest market on the continent, a swelling demography of ambitious, tech-savvy young people, accelerating regional integration and connection to new markets, we are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to launch the country into a new decade of sustained prosperity.”
