It is a stable isotope, with the highest binding energy per nucleon of any known nuclide (8.7945 MeV).
The high binding energy of nickel isotopes in general makes nickel an "end product" of many nuclear reactions (including neutron capture reactions) throughout the universe and accounts for the high relative abundance of nickel—although most nickel in space (and thus produced by supernova explosions) is nickel-58 (the most common isotope) and nickel-60 (the second-most), with the other stable isotopes (nickel-61, nickel-62, and nickel-64) being quite rare.
As noted, this does not contradict binding numbers because 62Ni has a greater proportion of neutrons which are more massive than protons.
The 56Ni is the natural end product of silicon-burning at the end of a supernova's life and is the product of 14 alpha captures in the alpha process which builds more massive elements in steps of 4 nucleons, from carbon.
Nonetheless, 28 atoms of nickel-62 fusing into 31 atoms of iron-56 releases 0.011 Da of energy; hence the future of an expanding universe without proton decay includes iron stars rather than "nickel stars".