Barriers, Risks, and Critical Success Factors of Digital Transformation Initiatives on Organisational Performance in the Nigerian Banking Industry (Zenodo)

Summary

• The systematic synthesis evaluated 16 eligible empirical studies on digital transformation in Nigerian deposit money banks (DMBs) selected from an initial pool of 35 records.p.1
• Cybersecurity was identified as the primary operational and strategic risk, highlighted by 4 out of 16 studies (25.0%).p.1
• Robust cybersecurity frameworks and modernised digital infrastructure were the top critical success factors, each found in 4 of 16 studies (25.0%).p.1
• Human and cultural barriers represented the most frequent impediment to digital transformation, appearing in 3 of 16 studies (18.8%).p.1
• Mean return on assets (ROA) across five Nigerian commercial banks with full continuous disclosures increased from 2.48% in 2019 to 3.48% in 2024.p.6

Key insights

1. Human and cultural resistance constitutes the single largest barrier category to digital transformation in Nigerian banking at 18.8%.p.5
2. Cybersecurity frameworks and digital infrastructure are the leading critical success factors for transformation, each cited in 25.0% of the reviewed studies.p.5
3. Out of six empirical studies assessing financial performance, two found positive and statistically significant impacts on ROA, while one found mixed outcomes depending on the channel.p.6
4. Annual NIP volume growth peaked in 2023 at 86.5%, largely driven by the currency redesign policy.p.4
5. A study confirmed that digital transformation initiatives had a statistically significant positive effect on internal control effectiveness (β = 0.52, p < 0.001).p.5
6. The observed ROA growth between 2019 and 2024 cannot be causally attributed to digital transformation due to confounding factors like foreign exchange revaluation gains and inflation.p.1
7. The Central Bank of Nigeria is recommended to mandate disaggregated reporting to separate core operational digital fee revenues from non-operating FX revaluation windfalls.p.7