--- title: "Zero Minimum Deposit Banks in Nigeria (2026)" description: "See which Nigerian banks and apps can open a Naira account with zero minimum deposit, and the one bank that always charged, from Liners’ 2026 field study." canonical_url: "https://liners.com/blog/zero-minimum-deposit-banks-nigeria" markdown_url: "https://liners.com/blog/zero-minimum-deposit-banks-nigeria.md" type: "article" language: "en" image: "https://assets.liners.com/storage/v1/object/public/media/posts/zero-minimum-deposit-banks-nigeria/cover.jpg?v=1788983520732" published_at: "2026-09-09T19:51:35.491Z" updated_at: "2026-09-09T19:52:58.826Z" --- # Zero Minimum Deposit Banks in Nigeria (2026) See which Nigerian banks and apps can open a Naira account with zero minimum deposit, and the one bank that always charged, from Liners’ 2026 field study. ## Breadcrumbs - [Blog](/blog) - [Banks With Zero Minimum Deposit to Open a Naira Account in Nigeria](/blog/zero-minimum-deposit-banks-nigeria) ## Article   At 87 of the 100 banks Liners walked into, nobody asked for a single Naira before opening the account. At one bank, it was ₦1,000 to ₦3,000 every time with no exceptions. That’s a reality from our [Naira account opening study](https://liners.com/research/naira-account-opening-nigeria-2026). We discovered zero deposit is the norm in Nigeria, whether you open online or in person. Here’s more details on the study, ## tldr All five digital banks tested by Liners researchers were open with zero deposit, and so did 87 of 100 traditional bank visits. Access Bank was the one exception, charging ₦1,000 to ₦3,000 every single time our researchers visited. ## Major Digital Banks in Nigeria Open for Free Liners confirmed a ₦0 opening deposit across all 31 online account opens logged in the study, on every one of the five apps tested. 1. **OPay** opened with no deposit and issued a virtual card in 7 of 9 opens, the most of any app. 2. **ALAT by Wema** also skipped the deposit, with a virtual card issued in 4 of 6 opens. 3. **PalmPay** required no deposit and gave a virtual card in 3 of 5 opens. 4. **Moniepoint** required no deposit and matched PalmPay at 3 of 5 opens getting a virtual card. 5. **Kuda** required no deposit, with a virtual card in 2 of 6 opens, the lowest rate of the group. Across all 31 opens, 19 walked away with a free virtual card the same session. This was a real card you could spend from immediately, not just an account number on a screen. ## Most Traditional Banks in Nigeria Don’t Charge to Open an Account The bigger surprise is how similar the walk-in experience was. 87 of the 100 branch visits Liners logged required no minimum opening deposit at all. Most Nigerian banks, digital or traditional, will let you create a Naira account with nothing in it. Where a deposit did come up, it was mostly a one-off rather than a bank-wide policy. These single instances happened at **Stanbic IBTC (Ipaja)**, **Wema Bank (FUTA)**, **Ecobank (Okota)**, **First Bank (Bodija)** and **Keystone Bank (Ota)**, plus two visits at **Polaris Bank (Bodija).** ## The Nigerian Bank That Needs a Deposit Before Opening an Account All five Access Bank visits in the Liners study required a deposit, somewhere between ₦1,000 and ₦3,000, with no free option logged at any branch. The highest single deposit in the whole study came from FCMB’s Mosan Ipaja branch, which asked one researcher for ₦10,000, far above what any other bank charged. ## Zero Deposit Doesn’t Mean Zero Cost A free account opening isn’t the same as a free account. Debit cards, maintenance charges and SMS alert fees all sit outside the opening deposit, and most banks in the study didn’t volunteer what those cost either. If a ₦0 opening deposit is what pulled you in, it’s worth asking about those other fees before you sign anything. If a guaranteed free open matters most to you, a digital bank is better. If you’re walking into a branch, budget for the possibility of a small deposit, and know that Access Bank will ask for one every time. ## Related pages - [Market Insights](/blog/category/market-insights) ## Access and citation - [Canonical HTML page](https://liners.com/blog/zero-minimum-deposit-banks-nigeria) - [Markdown route index](/sitemap.md) - [Agent access guide](/llms.txt)