This research is exploratory and is intended to help us understand the diverse interests and forces that helped shape various developments in the Nigerian banking industry, during the pre-independence era. The study investigates the activities of colonial banks in British Nigeria. Emphasis is placed on the dealings between these colonial banks and the Africans and the claim, by the Africans, that these foreign institutions were unhelpful to them. The motives and activities of the indigenous banks, subsequently established by the Africans, are also examined. Furthermore, the study investigates the different modes of bank regulation while Nigeria was a British Colony, studying the extent to which bank regulation in Nigeria has been influenced by that in other countries, and examining the complex role of banking sector regulation in a developing economy where banks have often been used overtly as instruments of political policy. Special emphasis is placed on the forces that helped shape the law and enforcement of banking regulation and the structure of the emergent regulatory institution. This research makes a contribution in a number of areas: (1) to our understanding of how banking regulation operates in a highly politicised environment (2) to our knowledge of the diffusion of banking practices and ideas and the significance of political control and social contact to the diffusion process and (3) to our appreciation of the forces shaping banking regulation over a long period
