← Embedded Finance Index 2026

First City Monument Bank Limited

“Can a legacy Nigerian commercial bank turn itself into the payments-and-lending operating system for Nigerian SMEs by owning virtual accounts, POS, and open-banking APIs?”

Founded1982
HQLagos, Nigeria
IndustryBank / National
The story

FCMB began as a 1970s securities house (City Securities Limited) that received a Nigerian banking licence in 1983 — the first indigenous bank built without state or foreign capital. It listed on the NSE in 2004 and reorganized under FCMB Group Plc as a full-service retail/commercial/investment-banking holding company. The current focus is on digital SME infrastructure — FCMB Collect (virtual-account collections), POS/merchant acquiring, and data-driven SME lending — while running an open-banking developer portal to expose account, payments and BaaS APIs to fintech partners.

Last 12 months
2026
Product timeline
1977
City Securities Limited founded — the predecessor entity.· pivot
1982
First City Monument Bank incorporated as a private limited liability company.· banking
1983
Granted banking licence — first Nigerian bank founded without government or foreign support.· banking
2004
Converted to a public limited company and listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.· ipo
2013
FCMB Group Plc reorganized as a non-operating financial holding company with FCMB Ltd, CSL Stockbrokers, FCMB Capital Markets and FCMB UK as subsidiaries.· pivot
2022
Partnered with Women's World Banking to launch Caregiver — a hospital cash microinsurance product targeting low-income women.· insurance
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by First City Monument Bank Limited
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
10 layers disclosed in First City Monument Bank Limited’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
FCMB Collect (self-operated)FCMB Payment Gateway (self-operated)FCMB POS acquiring (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Card network
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Insurance
in the full report
Open banking
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Investing
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
23 more providers across 9 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.