The Nigerian banking industry is highly regulated and relies on its knowledge workers in order to deliver good quality products and services. Despite the importance of banking institutions to Nigerian economy and the growing recognition of the importance of Knowledge Management (KM) across the world, there has been very little research carried out on assessing KM capabilities of banking institutions. In this work, the KM capabilities of Nigerian banks were examined. Structured questionnaire was used to capture information on both explicit and tacit knowledge from 5 personnel each from the existing 25 Nigerian banks. A KM tool was also implemented using C# to measure and monitor knowledge management capabilities of theses banks. It was found out that theses banks possess both organizational and operational environment for knowledge management. Also, KM is not a term in widespread use within the banks because it has not been recognized as a strategic issue for their effectiveness and development. All the banks studied had significant organizational capabilities for KM, but with higher levels of success in knowledge protection processes and the general culture for knowledge sharing. It was also found out that tacit knowledge is always lost through employees leaving, transferring or retiring. Best practices and lessons learned are not being captured and utilized effectively. It is therefore recommended that KM should be considered as a significant issue towards proper utilization of employees' knowledge and skills.
