An alkaline membrane fuel cell (AMFC) is considered as a promising technology allowing to convert chemical energy of a fuel, for example hydrogen, into electricity. The use of alkaline electrolytes opens up possibility of utilizing low-cost transition metal catalysts, which are unstable in acidic electrolytes. Herein, we developed a facile and efficient method to prepare carbon-supported nickel nanoparticles of small size (10 nm) at high metal loading (42 +/- 3 wt%) by electrodeposition. The resultant Ni-ED/XC-72 catalyst exhibits remarkably high mass activity in the hydrogen oxidation reaction, which can be further enhanced by partial oxidation of the metal surface. The activity achieved amounts to ca. 22 A center dot g(Ni)(-1) , thus being comparable to the values reported for commercial 20% Pd/C catalyst (38 A center dot g(pd)(-1)). The excellent electrocatalytic performance indicates that the Ni-ED/XC-72 catalyst can be considered as a replacement of the precious metals at the anodes of AMFCs.