Union Bank UK plc (UBUK), is a UK incorporated bank specializing in services to Nigeria and West Africa.
[1] It had previously been a subsidiary of the Union Bank of Nigeria, but was fully divested from that entity in 2020.
[2] The bank has been operating from the City of London since 1983, firstly as the London branch of the former parent bank, and since October 2004 as an independently incorporated UK bank, having received authorization from the Financial Services Authority, known now as the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
In 1971, Barclays incorporated the bank locally in Nigeria as Barclays Bank of Nigeria plc and sold a significant shareholding to the Federal Government and the Nigerian public.
In the early 1990s the Nigerian Government started a policy of privatization of state owned assets, which resulted in 1993 in both the Government and Barclays selling their remaining stakes in the bank to the public at large, thus creating a truly publicly owned bank.