Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has reaffirmed the regulator’s commitment to the reforms it has embarked on under his leadership to deliver a more stable and predictable macroeconomic environment for investors in Africa’s fourth-largest economy. The governor was speaking during a fireside chat with Odile Renaud-Basso, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), at the Africa Capital Forum held in London on 17th March 2026.
Cardoso acknowledged the severity of Nigeria’s recent economic challenges, noting that it was a period marked by high inflation, excess liquidity and investor flight. “Investors were heading for the windows,” he recalled, conceding that “you couldn’t really blame them at the time.” The bank’s response, he said, has been driven by discipline and consistency. As a result of its evidence-based policy making, Cardoso pointed out, the country has seen eleven consecutive months of disinflation.
Renaud-Basso acknowledged the impact of the reforms, noting that it is important for countries to have a macroeconomic system that is “open, transparent, rule-based and predictable.” Reform, however, will take time and effort. “This kind of transformation is not easy to do. It requires courage, vision, and tenacity to continue the course and it will take time to deliver the results,” she stressed.
Key to its success, Cardoso and Renaud-Basso agreed, is transparency. The governor was emphatic that “the foreign exchange system that we had in the past is dead and buried,” giving way to a system where players can transact freely. “You do not have to know anyone to buy and sell foreign exchange,” he stressed.
As head of the banking regulator, Cardoso emphasised not just the centrality of the sector to the country’s economic transformation but also the progress that has been made in strengthening it, including the ongoing recapitalisation drive. “The recapitalisation effort is in gear and so far, 32 banks have met the minimum capital requirements with others going through the verification process,” he revealed, adding that of the over N4 trillion raised from the capital market, N1.15 trillion was raised from overseas sources, which he said is an indication of the potential that the sector is recognised as having.
Beyond capital adequacy, Cardoso said the ambition is to position Nigerian banks as globally competitive institutions. “They are ambassadors; they carry our flags and they have to have the same compliance standards as any international bank.”
Acknowledging the CBN’s efforts, Renaud-Basso said the EBRD views banks as its indispensable partners in delivering development impact. “Our objective is to invest more than 75% of our activity in the private sector and therefore the banks are key partners that enable us to access SMEs, for example,” she explained.
As EBRD expands its footprint across the continent, Renaud-Basso outlined four priority areas that the bank is looking to invest in. They include power and renewable energy; digital infrastructure; agribusiness; and transport logistics. “I think these are key elements, both for the Nigerian businesses to prosper and to attract foreign investors. You need the key operational infrastructure to be there to develop,” she explained.
While broadly endorsing this framework, Cardoso noted that there is an ongoing shift in the role of the state in development. “There is a greater interest by the governments to let go of some of the things that it has traditionally been involved in and get the private sector to take over,” he said. He assured investors that while the government may seem dominant in some sectors, it is only seeking to create the conditions to make it possible for the private sector to lead.
Development finance institutions such as the EBRD are expected to play a catalytic role, Cardoso said. “You can talk to the government on one side and the private sector on the other. You also have various degrees of experience with these kinds of structures that you can bring to the table,” he noted.