Finance and Insurance sector expands 16.8% YoY despite back-to-back quarterly contractions
The contribution of banks, insurance firms, and other financial institutions to Nigeria’s economy fell by 15 per cent in the third quarter of 2025 (Q3’25), sliding to N1.512 trillion from the N1.778 trillion recorded in the first quarter of the year (Q1’25).
The latest drop marks the second consecutive quarterly decline for the Finance and Insurance sector, according to the Q3 2025 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
A review of the data shows that the sector had already contracted by 7.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) in Q2’25, falling to N1.651 trillion from N1.778 trillion in Q1. That downward trend persisted into Q3’25, where the sector shrank further by 8.4 per cent to N1.512 trillion.
Despite the QoQ slowdown, the sector recorded a strong performance over the first nine months of the year. Financial and insurance services contributed a combined N4.94 trillion to the economy between January and September 2025, representing a 16.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase from the N4.23 trillion posted in the same period of 2024.
The industry’s share of total GDP also increased, rising to 3.0 per cent in the first nine months of 2025 (9M’25) from 2.7 per cent in 9M’24.
Further analysis of the NBS figures shows that the sector experienced consistent YoY growth across all three quarters of 2025. In Q1’25, output rose by 15 per cent YoY to N1.778 trillion, up from N1.546 trillion in Q1’24. The upward momentum continued in Q2’25 with a 16.1 per cent YoY increase to N1.651 trillion, compared to N1.421 trillion in Q2’24. The sector then posted its strongest YoY performance in Q3’25, expanding by 19.6 per cent to N1.512 trillion from N1.264 trillion in Q3’24.
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