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Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive has recorded impressive headline gains, but a deeper look at account activity shows that many citizens remain excluded in practical terms despite being formally onboarded into the banking system, an advocacy group, EnterpriseNGR, in its State of Enterprise Report 2026 revealed on Thursday.
According to the report, with more than 320 million active accounts and a near-95 per cent inclusion rate, the country appears to have made significant progress but yet the persistence of about 30 million dormant accounts suggests that access to financial services has not always translated into meaningful participation.
It noted that this gap matters because account ownership alone does not guarantee economic inclusion.
A dormant account is evidence that a customer has been brought into the formal system, but is not actively using it. For many Nigerians, especially low-income earners, informal workers and rural households, the problem is not simply having an account, but having a financial relationship that is useful, affordable and trusted enough to support savings, payments, credit access and resilience against shocks.
If millions of accounts remain inactive, then the financial inclusion story is stronger on registration than on usage. That means a large part of the population may still be operating outside the formal financial ecosystem in practice, even if they are counted within it statistically.
This, the report noted, will weaken the development impact of financial inclusion programmes and limit their contribution to poverty reduction, small business growth and household financial stability.
Making recommendations, Chief Executive Officer, EnterpriseNGR, Obi Ibekwe, said, “For the Central Bank of Nigeria, the challenge is to move beyond measuring how many people have accounts and begin tracking how many people actually use them. The CBN should reframe financial inclusion metrics to focus on active usage, credit access, savings behaviour and financial resilience outcomes. Such a shift would provide a more accurate picture of whether inclusion is delivering real economic value.
“Banks and other financial institutions also have a role to play. Instead of treating account opening as the endpoint, they should design products and outreach strategies that convert dormant accounts into active ones. This could include low-cost digital transactions, simplified savings products, affordable microcredit and more responsive customer engagement.
Community-based financial literacy campaigns would also help to build trust and improve usage, particularly among underserved groups”, she said.
She added: “There is also a strong gender dimension to the issue. Expanding gender-disaggregated reporting through the Women’s Financial Inclusion Dashboard across all Tier 1 banks would help regulators and institutions identify where women continue to face barriers to active usage, not just access.
“Ultimately, Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive must shift from breadth to depth. The country has succeeded in bringing millions of people into the formal system on paper, but the next phase must ensure that these accounts become active tools for savings, payments, borrowing and economic participation. Without that shift, the inclusion story will remain incomplete”.
Nigeria’s financial sector cemented its position as the leading contributor to government tax revenues in 2025.
Financial and insurance activities, encompassing banks and other financial institutions, contributed N1.50 trillion to total national Company Income Tax
collections of N4.99 trillion, accounting for 30.0 per cent of the total. This represents a 116.7 per cent increase from N691.59
billion in 2024, and comfortably surpasses all other sectors, nearly doubling the 17.7 per cent share contributed by the manufacturing sector, which ranked second.
The picture moderated in Q1 2026, with total national CIT revenue declining 31.0 per cent year-on-year to N1.37 trillion. Financial and insurance activities nonetheless retained their leading position, contributing 24.7 per cent of total CIT collections during the quarter.
