Nigeria’s largest lender by market value Zenith Bank built its biggest half-year profit in history on an unusual surge in foreign currency revaluation gain.
The growth was so huge that it also helped save the bank from a deep drop in earnings that would have resulted from deteriorating credit quality.
Like most lenders that have some of their assets denominated in foreign currency, the bank earned big from a slide of 40 per cent in the exchange rate of the dollar to the naira in June, which drove up the value of such assets in local currency.
