Nigeria, April 25 -- Stanbic IBTC Holdings, the local operation of Africa's largest bank, Johannesburg-based Standard Bank Group, turned the high-interest rate environment in Nigeria to its advantage to post a 79.8 per cent profit rise for the last quarter.

Its earnings report, out on Friday, showed interest income at N180.5 billion, more than half the figure it reported a year earlier.

It underscores how the tide of the Central Bank of Nigeria's prolonged hawkish stance on interest rate is still turning in favour of lenders, even after the regulator paused rate hikes in the middle of February.

Nigeria's top monetary authority raised the reference rate by 875 basis points last year in continuation of a tightening cycle that started in ...