Access Bank mulls dollar-denominated securities sale to DFIs
Access Bank has revealed that it is considering selling dollar-denominated securities to Development Financial Institutions and on the open market to boost its capital base and fund expansion plans.
This was disclosed by the Managing Director, Roosevelt Ogbonna, during a media parley in Lagos on Monday.
He noted that the securities would be issued in two tranches.
At the press briefing, Ogbonna, who didn’t reveal how much the lender was seeking to raise, said that the recently oversubscribed FX bond of the Federal Government would serve as a guide for them.
Nigeria had raised over $900m in its first-ever Domestic FGN US Dollar Bond, which opened in August.
Ogbonna said one of the tranches would be targeted at development financial institutions and the other would be sold on the open market.
During the briefing, the bank MD also pointed out that as international banks were pulling out of the African continent, it was important for a local bank to take advantage of the opportunities in the market.
“With international banks pulling out, there has to be a local bank, a local African bank who is local in every market that takes significant advantage of those opportunities in African free trade,” he said.
On the bank’s expansion plans, Ogbonna said, Access Bank plans to expand to the United States of America market latest in the first quarter of 2026.
Access Bank currently operates in London and Paris markets and its UK unit will open an office in Hong Kong on October 30.
“By the first quarter of 2026, we will have Access Bank USA. We are going to be in the USA market. We will be in the global market and we will have global conversations and deal with different counterparties who operate across the world.
“So, we have started something we refer to as an aggregator strategy. There is no point in being a pan-African banker when you have zero impact. So, it is very clear to us that in every market, we have to compete locally, and we have to be a dominant bank in the local market.
“Of our 19 markets that we will be on the continent by 2027, eight of those markets will be in the top three banks. 15 of these markets will be a top 10 bank and 11 of them will be a top five bank,” he stated.
As its expansion plan gets underway, he added that the management was deliberate about the market that it invests in.
He asserted that the lender financial institution was targeting markets where there was a rule of law and respect for contracts.
