Zenith Bank’s Dividend Capacity
OpenLife News reports that while five of Nigeria’s biggest banks were barred from paying shareholders in 2025, Zenith Bank Plc stood out. The bank did not only passed the Central Bank of Nigeria’s strict dividend eligibility test, it rewarded investors with N410.698 billion, or N10.00 per share.
Only six banks paid dividends for the 2025 financial year, totaling N1.27 trillion. Zenith and GTCO alone accounted for 81.9% of that amount.
The story behind Zenith’s payout reveals why capacity to pay dividends has become the new scorecard for Nigerian banks.
A Tough Year For Bank Dividends
According to research, 11 big banks listed on the NGX posted a combined Profit Before Tax of N6.4 trillion in 2025.
That was down 3.8% from N6.7 trillion in 2024. Yet despite the huge profits, only six banks were allowed to pay dividends. The other five were stopped by the CBN.
The reason: capital retention.
As banks raced to meet the CBN’s recapitalisation deadline, the apex bank invoked prudential guidelines. Banks with weak capital adequacy ratios, rising Non-Performing Loans, or insufficient retained earnings after full provisioning were told to hold their cash.
“The divergence in dividend payments was primarily driven by differences in capital strength, regulatory compliance, earnings quality and strategic priorities, rather than profitability alone,” said Fiona Ahimie, President of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers.
How Zenith Proved Its Capacity
Zenith passed where others failed because of 3 things: capital, earnings quality, and risk management.
{A} Strong Capital Base
Zenith entered the recapitalisation exercise with one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. Shareholders’ funds stood at N4.029 trillion at the end of 2024, up 73.42% YoY. That buffer meant the bank could absorb loan losses, meet CBN ratios, and still have enough to pay shareholders.
{B} Trillion-Naira Earnings Engine
The bank’s ability to generate profit gave it room to pay and retain at the same time.
In 2024, Zenith Bank Plc posted N1.033 trillion Profit After Tax, the first time any Nigerian bank crossed the trillion-naira mark. Gross earnings hit N3.971 trillion, driven by N2.721 trillion in interest income and N1.1 trillion in trading gains.
In 2025, the momentum continued. Gross earnings rose to N4.1 trillion, second only to Access Holdings’ N5.5 trillion. Pretax profit for Tier-1 banks slowed to N4.15 trillion from N5.06 trillion in 2024, but Zenith’s scale kept it in the top tier.
{C} Clean Books and Low Risk
Unlike some peers hit by forbearance write-offs and foreign subsidiary exposures, Zenith had already provisioned aggressively. When CBN ended forbearance, the bank did not need a fire-sale of retained earnings.
However, in declaring dividend, one Tier-1 bank was reportedly blocked because its foreign subsidiary exposure was 20% of shareholders’ funds, double the CBN’s 10% limit.
But interesting, Zenith had no such breach.
N410.7 Billion Payout
Zenith’s 2025 dividend was N10.00 per share, resulting to second largest in the market at N410.698 billion.
For context, that’s more than the entire market cap of many NGX-listed companies. It also made Zenith one of the highest dividend-yielding stocks in 2025, a key reason foreign and pension fund investors piled into the stock.
The payout helped push Zenith’s market cap from N2.54 trillion in December 2025 to over N5.07 trillion by June 2026.
Investors read the dividend as proof that the bank could grow and still return cash.
For Zenith shareholders, it was the needed validation, implying that its capacity to pay is no longer in doubt.
It has proven it can deliver trillion-naira profits, meet CBN rules, and still return N400bn+ to shareholders.
In a year when the CBN chose prudence over payouts, Zenith Bank showed what real dividend capacity looks like.
Founded by Dr. Jim Ovia in 1990 and headquartered in Victoria Island, Lagos, Zenith Bank operates over 500 domestic branches across every state in Nigeria and the FCT.
Internationally, it maintains banking subsidiaries and representative offices in the United Kingdom (including London and Manchester), France, UAE, China, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia etc.
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