Fidelity Bank released its audited financial statements for the fiscal year 2025 in May 2026, showcasing impressive overall performance with gross revenue increasing by 45.6% year-on-year to ₦1.52 trillion. The bank's profitability remains strong, with qualifying capital reaching ₦532 billion, well above the central bank's minimum requirement of ₦500 billion. From the perspective of traditional banking metrics, Fidelity Bank has performed exceptionally.
However, net loans and total credit have decreased by 2.4%, falling to ₦4.28 trillion.
While Fidelity Bank has reduced its lending, Nigerian fintech companies like Moniepoint issued over ₦1 trillion in credit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 2025. The gap between the two highlights how fintech is standing out in Nigeria's SME credit market.
Fidelity Bank is not losing market share because fintech is performing better within the same customer base; rather, it is because the bank has abandoned the customer segments that fintech now serves.
Fidelity Bank's Strategic Retreat
The contraction in Fidelity's total loans is not coincidental but a result of its management optimizing the balance sheet. According to the bank's disclosures, the decline occurred as clients repaid their maturing debts. Instead of reintroducing credit into the market, particularly to the volatile small business sector, Fidelity Bank opted to preserve capital.
This decision is reasonable for a tier-one bank adhering to regulatory requirements, but it also presents structural opportunities for fintech.
The Neglect of the SME Credit Market
While traditional commercial institutions are eager to accept deposits from small businesses, they completely exclude them from capital deployment, resulting in only 1.5% of SME investments being financed through banks.
The issue is not a lack of funds within banks, but rather that SMEs lack the collateral and formal company histories required by tier-one banks.
For instance, a merchant operating a supermarket in Lagos with an annual revenue of ₦20 million may not have land titles, five years of audited financial reports, or even a client manager who knows their name. In the eyes of Fidelity Bank, this merchant is invisible; whereas for Moniepoint, this merchant is merely a data point on a POS machine.
In 2025, Moniepoint processed ₦412 trillion in transactions across 14 billion transactions. These transaction flows represent collateral that traditional banks cannot see. Every purchase at the supermarket register, every sale of mobile airtime, and every fuel transaction is recorded.
Moniepoint has a clear understanding of the cash inflows in this merchant's account on a daily basis. Speed and data have replaced land titles and audited financial reports.
How Fintech is Expanding as Banks Retreat
This scale is remarkable. Moniepoint issued over ₦1 trillion in loans specifically to small businesses in 2025, covering approximately 70,000 enterprises, with an average loan amount of ₦14.3 million.
