HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND PERFORMANCE OF DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA (A STUDY OF ACCESS BANK OF NIGERIA PLC)

Human capital investment and its effect on performance are contemporary global corporate reporting issues following emphasis on widespread corporate failures in Nigerian banks. The research was carried out to examine the influence of human capital investment on performance of access bank Plc in Nigeria. With a population of all the deposit money banks in Nigeria, a sample size of one bank listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc as at 31st December, 2023 was selected using purposive sampling techniques. To achieve the objectives, a survey and ex- post facto research designs were adopted involving manual generation of data from the annual reports of the selected companies. The study period was from 2014 to 2023 financial year. The actual values of human capital investment components were generated. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics specifically through multiple regression techniques. Human capital investment was proxy by education and training, staff incentive, hiring and recruitment cost and health and safety cost while performance of banks was proxy by return on assets. Results revealed that, education and training, staff incentive, hiring and recruitment cost and health and safety cos have a negligible positive influence on return on assets. It was concluded that, bank profitability can be improved when invested on human capital development. It was recommended that, management of deposit money banks and labour unions should ensure there is appropriate accountable structure to improve the commitment of the companies to human and educational cost and management and the ways of boosting the financial performance of firms.