The Central Bank of Nigeria revoked the operating licences of 46 microfinance banks with effect from 1 July, one of its largest single revocations in years, citing insolvency, dormancy and regulatory breaches under Sections 12 and 13 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 2020.
The move lands hardest on the small savers and traders microfinance banks exist to serve. According to the revocation order announced by acting communications director Hakama Sidi-Ali and approved by Governor Olayemi Cardoso, the affected institutions had one or more of: insufficient assets to meet liabilities, closure of operations without CBN approval, cessation of financial intermediation, failure to commence operations within 12 months of licensing, or failure to maintain minimum capital unimpaired by losses.
The geography is telling. Kano State accounts for 13 of the 46 banks, the largest share, followed by Lagos with eight, with the remainder spread across 19 other states and the FCT. By category, 25 were Tier 2 institutions, 18 Tier 1, and three state microfinance banks. The sweep comes as the CBN’s wider bank recapitalisation deadline of 31 March 2026 has passed, a programme under which at least 30 commercial banks had met the new capital thresholds by March, and it follows the ProvidusUnity merger in the commercial tier.
The question worth pressing: microfinance exists because commercial banking never reached Nigeria’s informal economy, and northern states, where financial exclusion is deepest, dominate this failure list. Cleaning the register is defensible supervision. But every revoked licence in Kano is also a data point on how thin formal finance remains where 17 million people, by the World Food Programme’s current count, face a hunger crisis. Depositors of the affected banks now look to the NDIC process for whatever insured sums remain.
What to watch: The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation’s payout timetable for insured depositors, and whether the CBN follows with revocations in other licence categories as post-recapitalisation enforcement continues.