CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY Nigeria banking sector has experienced a boom-and-burst cycle in the past 20-25 years. After the implementation of the structural adjustment programme (SAP) in 1986 and de-regulation of the financial sector, new banks proliferated mainly driven by attractive arbitrage opportunities in the foreign exchange market (Heiko 2007), but prior to the de-regulation period, financial intermediation never took off and even declined in the1980’s and 1990’s (Capirio and Kligbiel). The sector was highly oligopolistic with remarkable features of market concentration and leadership. Lemo noted that there are ten banks that control more than 50% of the aggregate assets of the banking sector, more than 51% of the aggregate deposits liabilities and more than 45%of the aggregate credits.
The sector was characterized by small scale banks with high overheads; low capital base averaging less than $10 million; heavy reliance on the government patronage and loss making. Nigeria‘s banking sector was still characterized by a high degree of fragmentation and low level of financial intermediation up to 2004. This research work is motivated by the need to look into the Central bank (CBN)’s recent reform (consolidation) that employed certain measures to strengthen the Nigeria banking system by drastically increasing the minimum capital requirement from N2 million to N25 billion ($190 million-US). Through review of relevant literatures, analysis of policy documents, official report and economic information on the banking sector, it became evident that the consolidation of banks led to a remarkable reduction in the number of banks from 89 to 25 by merge, acquisition, initial public offer and other means. The research work concludes that bank consolidation has resulted in making banks more efficient and reliable and also, their