By PYMNTS | October 21, 2026
J.P. Morgan Chase is reportedly getting closer to obtaining a banking license in Nigeria.
The largest U.S. bank has deposited 50 billion naira ($37.5 million) with the Central Bank of Nigeria, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (Oct. 20), citing sources familiar with the matter.
The deposit, one of the last regulatory requirements for clinching approval, shows J.P. Morgan’s readiness to open a merchant banking business in Africa’s most populous county, the sources told Bloomberg.
The sources added that J.P. Morgan expects to receive the license by the end of this year or in early 2027, though there are no guarantees of its approval, as the central bank still hasn’t made its decision.
According to the report, Nigeria’s banking regulations for license approval require applications to deposit capital in a dedicated central bank account to show they have enough funds to support their operations.
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Bloomberg notes that the move marks the latest phase in J.P. Morgan’s expansion in Africa, as the lender tries to capture a larger portion of trade finance, lending, payments and corporate-banking business.
The bank now has a representative office in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, and wants a banking license to widen its product offering in the country, the report said.
The news follows reports from the spring that J.P. Morgan was planning to expand its retail banking operations in Europe. A Financial Times report in June citing sources familiar with the matter said the bank wants to add at least three more countries to its operations beyond Germany and the U.K. by the end of 2030.
Those countries could include France, Italy and Spain, the sources said. J.P. Morgan launched Chase in the U.K. in 2021 before expanding the retail bank into Germany in May of this year.
“It has always been clear to us that we want to introduce Chase not only in the U.K., but also in Germany and other European countries. We have ambitious plans,” CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt in 2023.
Meanwhile, a recent report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that Nigeria has become sub-Saharan Africa’s leader in cross-border stablecoin payments, with the county accounting for 60% of stablecoin inflows since 2019.
“What began as a niche technology has become a meaningful cross-border payments channel. Its rapid growth is easing long-standing frictions in cross-border transactions,” the IMF report said. “It is also testing the limits of existing monetary and regulatory frameworks.”