The board of Diamond Bank Plc, on Monday informed stakeholders through the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved its bid to exchange its international banking license for one with a national scale.
This, it added, is subject to its concluding the sale of Diamond Bank UK, which is in its final stages to new owners.
The statement recalled that the bank had last year disposed its West African subsidiary, stressing that the re-licensing supports its “objective of streamlining to focus resources on the significant opportunities in the Nigerian retail market, and economy as a whole.”
Diamond Bank in the statement by Uzoma Uja, its company secretary and legal adviser, assured that “the change to national bank status also enables the bank to maintain a lower minimum capital requirement, and this creates headroom for stronger growth in the quarters ahead through customer acquisition and expansion of loans to the critical sectors of the economy.”
Notwithstanding the relicensing, the bank said it would continue to reach and offer services to clients in international locations through its digital channels such as Diamond Mobile and Internet Banking, among others, as well as through a network of correspondence banks.