Nigerian lender Sterling Bank said on Wednesday it had returned more than 1.6 billion naira (about US$1.0 million) to customers after one year of waiving transfer charges on its digital banking platform, in a move it says is reshaping customer expectations in the country’s banking sector.
The bank said its Zero Transfer Fees policy, launched on April 1, 2025, had eliminated charges on transfers made through its OneBank platform, making it one of the first major banks in Nigeria to forgo revenue from online customer transactions.
Sterling said the initiative had benefited millions of users over the past 12 months, particularly individuals, small businesses and digitally active customers, while also helping to drive higher transaction volumes and broader financial inclusion.
Chief Executive Officer Abubakar Suleiman said the decision was part of a deliberate strategy to build value for customers rather than rely on transfer charges as a revenue source.
“We made a deliberate decision to stop charging for the movement of money and to build our model around delivering real value instead,” he said in a statement.
“One year on, the outcome has validated both the principle behind that choice and the strength of the model itself.”
Transfer charges have long been a point of frustration for many Nigerian banking customers, particularly as digital transactions become more central to everyday commerce. Banks typically generate substantial fee income from transfers, account maintenance and other electronic banking services, making Sterling’s move notable in a sector where non-interest revenue remains an important source of earnings.
The bank said the fee waiver had been made possible by a multi-year digital transformation programme that included moving away from legacy infrastructure to a homegrown core banking platform, supported by a scalable private cloud system.
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Sterling said the investment in technology had allowed it to lower operational costs, improve efficiency and create room to pass some of those gains back to customers.
Suleiman said the bank’s transformation strategy was never simply about adopting new systems, but about building long-term capacity to improve service and expand access.
“When that capacity matured, we made a conscious decision to return the benefits to the people who make the system work,” he said.
The bank also suggested the initiative had started to influence wider industry conversations around pricing transparency and customer value in Nigeria’s financial services sector, where competition among banks and fintechs has intensified in recent years.
Chief Marketing Officer Donatus Okpako said the anniversary of the policy was both a milestone and a signal of the bank’s future direction.
“This initiative has challenged long-held assumptions about how banks create value,” he said.
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“We are demonstrating that it is entirely possible to run a strong, commercially sound institution while being fundamentally fair to customers.”
He said the 1.6 billion naira returned to users represented “real relief” and a “rebalancing in favour of the customer”.
Sterling said it would continue to expand its offerings across payments, savings and credit, while maintaining a focus on improving financial outcomes and widening access to formal banking services.
The lender added that its second year under the zero-fee policy would be shaped by further investment in technology and customer-focused products, as it seeks to raise expectations of what Nigerians should demand from their banks.
The move comes at a time when digital banking adoption is rising rapidly in Nigeria, with traditional lenders and fintech firms competing aggressively for customers in one of Africa’s largest and fastest-growing financial services markets.
For Sterling, the challenge now will be proving that customer-friendly pricing can remain commercially sustainable as competition deepens and cost pressures persist.
