That 8.8 percent decline happened even as the number of licensed banks in Nigeria grew during part of the same period, from 32 institutions in 2022 to 35 in 2024 before settling at 34 in 2025, the CBN’s 2025 Statistical Bulletin for the Financial Sector confirmed.
More banks, fewer places to walk into. The data, compiled jointly with the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, covers branches and cash centers run by commercial, merchant, and non-interest banks across all 36 states and the FCT.
The bulk of the closures came late. Only 37 locations shut in 2023, but the pace jumped sharply to 229 in 2024 and 210 more in 2025, meaning roughly 92 percent of the entire three-year decline happened within the final two years of the period. The acceleration suggests that decisions taken during or after the 2023 banking year, possibly linked to rising operating costs, currency pressures, or strategic shifts toward digital channels, began to show up in the physical network at scale only from 2024 onward.
Lagos absorbed the largest share of those losses in raw numbers, with 158 branches and cash centers closing between 2022 and 2025. Its total fell from 1,602 locations to 1,444, a 9.9 percent reduction over three years.
Despite that decline, Lagos still held 29 percent of the country’s entire physical banking infrastructure in 2025, with 1,444 of the 4,934 locations recorded nationwide. No other state came close.
The FCT lost 38 locations during the same period, dropping from 400 to 362, a 9.5 percent contraction in the capital, where formal financial activity is typically densest.
Ekiti recorded the sharpest percentage loss of any state. Its branch and cash-center network was cut nearly in half, falling from 107 locations in 2022 to 57 in 2025, a 46.7 percent reduction that left the state with fewer banking points than at any time in the measured period.
Enugu dropped by 44 locations, from 162 to 118. Oyo lost 41, falling from 237 to 196. Ondo, Plateau, Osun, Cross River, and Rivers all ended 2025 with smaller physical networks than they had three years earlier.
Not every state contracted. Delta added 23 locations, growing from 173 to 196. Edo rose from 155 to 165, while Jigawa climbed from 31 to 37 and Kogi from 63 to 68. Those gains were modest in absolute terms but notable given the direction of the national trend.
The gap between the most and least-served states remained wide. Lagos held 1,444 locations in 2025, while Yobe had 23, Taraba 26, and Zamfara 28, a disparity that has persisted throughout the period covered by the bulletin.
Kano and Kaduna each showed a brief expansion before reversing. Kano grew from 164 to 183 locations by 2024, then dropped to 157 in 2025, ending seven locations below its 2022 level. Kaduna rose from 148 to 164 before falling back to 146.
The CBN’s acting Director of Corporate Communications, Hakama Sidi-Ali, said at the 2026 CBN Fair in Lokoja that alternative payment channels were particularly important for farmers, traders, small businesses, and informal-sector operators with limited access to conventional banking services.
Sidi-Ali, represented at the event by CBN Lokoja Branch Controller Zubairu Salihu, said increased adoption of digital channels could help expand access to financial services for segments of the population unable to reach a traditional banking hall.
The contraction in bank branches and cash centers is happening at the same time that the CBN is pushing financial inclusion, a combination that raises a direct question the bulletin does not answer: What replaces a physical branch for the Nigerian who has no smartphone, no reliable data connection, and no agent banking point nearby?
