CBN approves Abbey Mortgage Bank’s transition to regional commercial bank

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted regulatory approval for Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc to officially convert its operating license into a regional commercial banking license, marking an aggressive transformation for one of the country’s premier primary mortgage institutions.

The transition, disclosed in an official regulatory filing on Wednesday, signals a major expansion strategy designed to pivot the lender away from niche housing finance into the broader, highly competitive commercial banking ecosystem.

As part of the structural overhaul, the bank has dropped its specialized designation.

Following a shareholder resolution originally passed during an Extraordinary General Meeting, the institution has formally changed its legal name from Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc to Abbey Bank PLC.

This regulatory milestone follows in the footsteps of other financial institutions altering their structures to navigate shifting market dynamics, such as Nova Bank’s recent transition from merchant banking to full-fledged commercial operations.

The timing of the approval coincides with the central bank’s ongoing sector-wide recapitalization directive, which heavily adjusted capital requirements for financial institutions.

Under the new framework, the minimum capital base for regional commercial banks has been pushed up to N50 billion.

To smoothly clear this regulatory hurdle and fund its regional scaling, Abbey Bank PLC recently secured shareholder consent for a massive capital campaign, which includes establishing a N100 billion debt issuance programme alongside raising an additional N64.5 billion in equity capital via rights issues or public offers.

According to its latest first-quarter earnings report, the bank’s total assets jumped to N222.4 billion as of March 2026, representing a substantial growth trajectory from the N165.8 billion recorded at the close of December 2025.

Post-tax profit for the first quarter grew to N715.3 million, more than doubling the N340.5 million posted in the same period last year, while gross earnings experienced an 85.6% surge to hit N7 billion.

Investors reacted positively to the milestone. At the close of trading on Wednesday, shares in the bank climbed 5.4% to close at N7.8 per unit on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos.

The transition is expected to grant Abbey Bank PLC the leverage to aggressively tap into retail deposits, offer broader corporate credit lines, and roll out expansive digital banking solutions across its target regional markets once operational restructuring concludes later this year.