FTSE Russell to upgrade Nigeria to frontier market status from Sept

Global index provider, FTSE Russell, on Tuesday, announced that Nigeria will be reclassified to frontier market status in September 2026.

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This was contained in an official notice released on Tuesday in its March 2026 semi-annual country classification review.

FTSE Russell said market participants have reported that FX backlogs in Nigeria have been cleared and that international institutional investors are no longer experiencing any material delays in repatriating capital from Nigeria.

Based on its assessment, FTSE Russell confirmed that Nigeria meets the five FTSE Quality of Markets criteria required to attain Frontier market status within the FTSE Equity Country Classification scheme.

This followed the feedback received from the FTSE Equity Country Classification Advisory Committee and the FTSE Russell Policy Advisory Board, the FTSE Russell Index Governance Board confirms.

The reclassification is a major boost for Nigeria’s economy and investors’ confidence.

Recall that Nigeria was reclassified from frontier to unclassified market status in September 2023 due to significant and ongoing delays in international institutional investors’ ability to repatriate capital from Nigeria and to execute foreign exchange (FX) transactions.

On March 26, 2024, Central Bank of Nigeria’s governor, Olayemi Cardoso, said all forex backlogs have been cleared.