CBN Identifies High Bank Charges, Others as Challenges to Business Growth in Nigeria

• Businesses in Nigeria battled lots of challenges in 2024, and a CBN report now shows that high bank charges were one of them
• Other challenges include rising inflation, a harsh economic environment, and limited access to credit
• Experts continue to call on the CBN to take a more accommodating stance and lower the benchmark interest rates

Legit.ng journalist Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

High bank charges appear to be posing serious constraints to business growth in Nigeria, according to a recent survey by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The survey also highlights other challenges like harsh business environment, economic instability, insecurity, infrastructural deficit, limited access to credit and high interest rates.

The report titled ‘Business Expectation Survey (BES)’ covered the last couple of months of 2024 especially December 2024.

Interestingly, the report shows that firms remained optimistic about the broader economic outlook despite these challenges.

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The report suggests that this optimism could be linked to businesses’ positive expectations about the exchange rate, the volume of business activities, and total order levels.

Businesses hope for fewer constraints in 2025

According to the VANGUARD, the survey found that businesses were generally confident about the macroeconomic environment changing in 2025.

The CBN report read;

“Respondent firms were optimistic about the overall macroeconomy. The optimism may be attributed to the positive outlook on Exchange rate, volume of business activities, and volume of total order. The overall confidence index (CI) on the macroeconomy indicated that businesses were optimistic in December 2024.”

This confidence spanned across various sectors, with respondents expecting business activity to pick up in the upcoming months. Many also anticipated the naira would appreciate further bolstering positive expectations.

As a result, businesses expressed plans to hire more employees in January 2025, particularly in the agricultural sector, which showed the greatest growth potential.

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Businesses struggle with rising inflation

Additionally, the CBN’s "Inflation Expectation Survey" also released recently, revealed that small businesses had the strongest perception of high inflation, with 83.9% of respondents agreeing that inflation was high in December 2024.

Further breakdowns indicated that households earning between N150,001 and N200,000 per month were particularly sensitive to rising inflation.

The report also identified key factors influencing inflation perceptions, including energy costs, exchange rates, transportation expenses, and insecurity. Both businesses and households expressed hopes that inflation would moderate in the coming months.

Recall that some banks like Ecobank Nigeria had increased intra-African transfer fees last year, putting more burden on businesses that move funds across continental borders.

Eleven banks earned nearly N714 billion from charges and commissions in the first nine months of 2022, according to a financial report.

How to reduce bank charges

A recent Legit.ng report shared tips from experts on how banking customers can avoid or significantly reduce their bank charges.

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With high fees cutting across transfers, withdrawals, SMS notifications, account maintenance and others, Nigerians continue to lose good sums of money to the multiple charges.

Despite countless demonstrations, grievances, and even jokes on social media, nothing has changed; instead, more charges have emerged.

One tip is that customers should keep transactions under limits to avoid the charges, for instance, keeping transfers below N10,000 to avoid the N50 electronic transfer fee.

Source: Legit.ng