Nigeria’s finance and insurance sector demonstrated remarkable resilience and expansion in 2025, according to official data. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported the sector achieved a 14.54% annual growth rate, a significant acceleration from the 2.95% growth recorded in 2024. This robust performance underscores the sector’s critical role in the nation’s economic landscape.
The detailed Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report for the fourth quarter of 2025 reveals a sector in strong ascent. In real terms, the sector grew by 8.30% year-on-year in Q4 2025, outpacing the rate from the same period in 2024 by 2.31 percentage points. A quarter-on-quarter growth of 8.37% further indicates sustained momentum. The sector’s contribution to real GDP increased to 2.56% in Q4 2025, up from 2.46% in the final quarter of the preceding year.
Financial institutions, constituting 90.43% of the sector’s real output in Q4 2025, continue to dominate the landscape. The insurance subsector contributed the remaining 9.57%. In nominal terms, the sector’s growth was even more pronounced, with a 26.58% year-on-year increase in Q4 2025. While financial institutions grew nominally by 26.15%, the insurance subsector posted a stronger growth rate of 30.83%. For the full year 2025, the sector’s nominal growth reached 38.51%, and its contribution to nominal GDP rose to 3.30%, up from 2.82% in 2024.
This sectoral expansion occurred alongside a broader national economic recovery, with Nigeria’s GDP growing by 4.07% year-on-year in real terms during Q4 2025. The finance and insurance sector’s growth is a pivotal component of this macroeconomic improvement, highlighting its function in facilitating economic activity. The performance may reflect underlying corporate strength, as evidenced when a major player like Heirs Holdings announces strategic results, or shifts in institutional investment patterns. Such dynamism is essential for national development, especially in regions where reports from the UN indicate the North-east faces profound challenges. The sector’s health, potentially buoyed by factors like rising EMTL allocations jump or a stock market rebounds, remains a key indicator for Nigeria’s economic trajectory, a point often emphasized by diverse voices including Muric can and political leaders like President Tinubu when discussing national progress.
