The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday disclosed that Nigeria’s gross external reserve climbed to $43 billion as of September 11, 2025.

This was revealed by the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, while briefing journalists after the 302nd meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) held on September 22nd and 23rd, 2025, in Abuja.

According to him, the reserve increased to $43.05 billion in the month under review compared with US$40.51 billion at the end of July 2025, with an import cover of 8.28 months.

“Similarly, the second quarter 2025 current account balance recorded a significant surplus of $5.28 billion, compared with $2.85 billion in the first quarter of 2025,” he added. 

Cardoso also stated that 14 Nigerian banks have fully met the new capital requirement in the ongoing recapitalisation exercise.

The CBN had introduced a new minimum capital base requirement for banks, with tiers depending on licence type.

Before then, the last major bank recapitalisation exercise in Nigeria was in 2004, when the CBN raised the minimum capital requirement for all banks from ₦2 billion to ₦25 billion.

This was a significant increase that led to a major consolidation in the banking sector, as the number of banks was reduced from 89 to 25 through a series of mergers and acquisitions.

In the current recapitalisation exercise, commercial banks with international authorisation now have a new capital requirement of ₦500 billion.

Commercial banks with national authorisation have ₦200 billion as capital requirement, and commercial banks with regional authorisation have ₦50 billion.

Merchant banks have a requirement of ₦50 billion, non-interest banks (national)₦20 billion, and non-interest banks (regional) ₦10 billion.

This is as the apex bank reduced the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50 basis points from 27.5 per cent to 27 per cent.