Access Holdings’ foreign subsidiaries contributed 48 percent of the banking group’s net income last year, up from 30 percent in 2021, highlighting how its aggressive expansion across Africa and other international markets is reshaping the earnings profile of Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, according to Fitch Ratings.
The share of group assets held by foreign subsidiaries also more than doubled over the same period, rising to 51 percent at the end of 2025 from 23 percent in 2021.
In its report, African Banking Groups’ Cross-Border Expansion to Continue, the global ratings agency examined 14 African banking groups with subsidiaries in at least five African countries and consolidated assets above $15 billion at the end of 2025.
Fitch identified Access as having the fastest cross-border growth among the African banking groups covered, as lenders increasingly look beyond their domestic markets for growth, diversification and access to trade and financial flows.
‘Access has had the fastest cross-border growth in recent years,’ it said, attributing the expansion to a series of acquisitions aimed at building a network of subsidiaries across sub-Saharan Africa.
The acquisition of Mauritius-based AfrAsia Bank, completed in July 2025, has been particularly significant. AfrAsia had assets of about $6.9 billion at the end of 2025, equivalent to an estimated 19 percent of Access’s consolidated group assets.
The report added that the acquisition was important not only because of AfrAsia’s balance sheet but also because Mauritius provides a lower-risk operating environment than many of the sub-Saharan African markets in which Access operates.
‘The acquisitions have strengthened Access Bank’s franchise and geographical diversification,’ Fitch said, noting that foreign subsidiaries accounted for 48 percent of net income and 51 percent of assets at the end of 2025.
The transformation puts Access in a similar league with United Bank for Africa, whose foreign subsidiaries accounted for 77 percent of group net income in 2025, although Fitch noted that UBA’s figure was inflated by weak domestic performance. Foreign subsidiaries accounted for 52 percent of UBA’s total assets.
From acquisition spree to integration
For Access, however, the next stage of its international strategy is shifting from expansion to consolidation.
Fitch said the bank has entered a ‘consolidation and optimisation phase’, focused on integrating its acquisitions and extracting synergies from its increasingly complex international network.
The agency noted that while Access has experience integrating large domestic acquisitions, the sheer number of foreign acquisitions creates execution risks.
The group also faces a regulatory issue over its foreign investments. Fitch said Access is in breach of a regulation limiting investments in foreign subsidiaries to 10 percent of shareholders’ funds, which has prevented dividend payments.
The agency expects the group to restore compliance, partly by reducing its shareholding in some foreign subsidiaries by a limited amount, while continuing to fully consolidate the businesses.
The shift in Access’s earnings profile has also been helped by the naira’s sharp depreciation.
Fitch said the naira devaluation significantly increased the naira value of the assets and income generated by Nigerian banks’ foreign subsidiaries. Foreign operations also became more important to earnings in 2025 as the withdrawal of regulatory forbearance led to higher domestic loan impairment charges.
Foreign operations gain weight
The changing balance was already visible in Access Holdings’ 2026 results.
BusinessDay analysis of the group’s first-quarter results showed that Access Bank UK overtook the Nigerian operation as the group’s largest single earnings contributor for the first time.
Access Bank UK’s profit after tax rose by 73.5 percent year-on-year to N83.8 billion, compared with N52 billion for the Nigerian operation.
The development reflects a broader shift in Access’s earnings mix. Between January and September last year, Nigeria accounted for 37 percent of the group’s pre-tax profit, down from 61 percent during the same period in 2023. African subsidiaries increased their contribution to 35 percent from 18 percent, while the UK and other international businesses accounted for 28 percent, up from 21 percent.
The strategy was partly funded by capital raised by the group to support its international expansion.
Roosevelt Ogbonna, group managing director of Access Bank, said the capital raise was designed to finance the bank’s investment strategy, including the acquisition of Standard Chartered’s African subsidiaries.
In 2023, Access agreed to acquire Standard Chartered’s operations in Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia and Sierra Leone, as well as its Consumer, Private and Business Banking business in Tanzania.
The bank subsequently expanded its footprint through the acquisition of National Bank of Kenya from KCB Group, a majority stake in AfrAsia Bank and Standard Chartered’s consumer banking operations in Tanzania and subsidiary in The Gambia.
Diversification beyond Nigeria
Access’s expansion comes as international banks have reduced their presence in Africa, creating opportunities for regional lenders to acquire established businesses and customer networks.
Fitch said African banking groups are increasingly using cross-border expansion to reduce their dependence on individual domestic markets while positioning themselves to benefit from stronger growth, financial inclusion and trade flows created by the African Continental Free Trade Area.
For Access, Nigeria still accounted for 49 percent of group assets and 52 percent of net income at the end of 2025. Its UK operations accounted for 31 percent of assets, while Ghana contributed seven percent of group net income and Zambia six percent.
Fitch also sees a credit benefit from the bank’s diversification. Its UK and Mauritius operations accounted for a combined 32 percent of group assets and helped give Access an operating environment assessment of ‘b+’, one notch above Nigeria’s ‘b’.
But diversification does not automatically eliminate risk. Fitch said the benefit depends on the risk profile of the markets where banks expand.
For Access, the immediate challenge is therefore moving from acquisition-led growth to profitable integration.
Fitch expects foreign subsidiaries to remain an increasingly important source of assets and income for African banking groups as they deploy new capital and pursue opportunities across the continent.
For Access, the next test will be whether its expanding international network can translate into sustainable earnings, stronger integration and lower concentration risk rather than simply a larger geographical footprint.