ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effect of human capital investment on the performance of selected Nigerian Banks within the period of 2005-2012. The main objective of the study is to assess the effect of investment in human capital development on performance of selected Nigerian Banks from 2005 -2012. Two new generation banks (Access Bank Nigeria Plc and Eco bank Nigeria Plc) and two old generation banks (First Bank Nigeria Plc and United bank for Africa Nigeria Plc) were selected for the study. The data for this study (net profit, total assets, number of customers as well as data on human capital development cost (i.e. cost of training, allowance and salaries and operating cost of the banks) were sampled from the annual reports of the selected banks. Data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), simple regression analysis, and Pearson correlation analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results indicate that human capital investment of each of the various selected bank had significant contribution and effect on the banks performance which was proxy as net profit, total asset and number of customers. The cost of human capital development was observed to be positively related to the operating cost of each of the various banks studied as the increase in the operation cost of each of the various banks studied results to the increase in the cost of human capital development. In testing the hypothesis of this study, the entire null hypothesis was rejected and it was established that human capital investment contributes significantly to the net profit of the various selected banks. The human capital investment of the various banks had significant effect on their total assets and number of customers of the various banks, and there is significant ent. The study relationship between the operating cost and the cost of human capital developm mmercial banks recommends that there is need to improve the quality of human capital investment in co via judicious planning and administration of human capital investment since human capital contribute significantly to the banks operating cost and performance.