One of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, Sterling Bank, has announced plans to change its name The move follows shareholders’ approval for the bank to operate a holding company that involves its pension fund, Islamic banking, others Sterling Bank 2020 received approval from CBN to restructure its business and become a holding company

On Monday, the shareholders of the bank agreed to transfer their investment into the HoldCo, which will become a parent company.

Checks on the Nigerian Exchange show over 28,790,418,124 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each in the issued and paid-up share capital of Sterling Bank held by the Scheme Shareholders were transferred to Sterling Financial Holdings Company Limited.

This will hand investors who held the transferred shares in Sterling Bank the same volume of shares in the HoldCo.

A statement from Sterling bank shows the shareholders believe their decision will pave the way to make the company a dominant force in the financial market. Aside from banking, Sterling Bank operates a pension fund and an Islamic bank subsidiary.

Change of name benefits

The transaction on Monday, September 26, means that Sterling Bank has restructured and taken on a new name, Sterling Financial Holdings Company Limited (HoldCo). Ipledge2Naija reports that Embracing a Holdco structure confers Sterling Bank the leverage to make inroads into other sectors within financial services apart from commercial banking. Pension, asset management, payments, and fintech are gaining traction among banks and offer opportunities for diversification as competition for interest income, which accounts for the majority of the banking industry’s revenue, heats up.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings, one of the early adopters of the Holdco structure, demonstrates that the Holdco structure is a viable model. As the market leader in the Nigerian pension industry, its pension unit controls roughly one-third of the N14.2 trillion assets under management. Also, its non-interest (Islamic) banking service is one of the leading in the country after starting operation in December 2021.