Dapo Olagunji, managing director of J.P. Morgan West Africa, says plans are underway to establish a merchant bank in Nigeria, with operations expected to commence before the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Olagunji announced the plan at the Nigeria–Asia Financial Connectivity Dialogue in Singapore on October 8.
According to a statement on Thursday, the dialogue was convened by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collaboration with J.P. Morgan, Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) and FMDQ Group.
The proposed merchant bank would mark a new development in J.P. Morgan’s presence in Nigeria, as the country seeks to deepen its financial markets and attract international investment.
The announcement came during a series of engagements by Olayemi Cardoso, CBN governor, with financial institutions and market stakeholders in Singapore ahead of the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.
On September 15, J.P. Morgan included Nigeria in its new emerging markets index, assigning a 7.4 percent weighting to the West African nation.
The index, also known as the Government Bond Index–Emerging Markets Edge (GBI-EM Edge), which tracks local-currency government bonds across frontier, launched at the end of September.
The development comes nearly 11 years after Nigeria was removed from J.P. Morgan’s GBI-EM in 2015.
Nigeria’s 7.4 percent weighting would make it one of the largest markets represented in the new benchmark, potentially increasing the visibility of its domestic government securities among global fixed-income investors.