A member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Dr Rafindadi Sanusi, has disclosed in his presentation during the last MPC meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria, that the total assets of banks rose to N42.2tn as of the end of February 2020.
He said, “Total assets of the industry have grown from N38.57tn in November 2019 to N42.89tn in February 2020.”
The rise in the assets of the banks shows an increase of 11.2 per cent within a period of three months, between November 2019 and February 2020.
Sanusi, an associate professor of economics at the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, also spoke on other developments in the banking industry in his personal statement released by the apex bank on Wednesday.
He said, “Review of the banking system stability report shows that the banking system continues to be stable and resilient.
“The non-performing loan ratio decreased from 6.59 per cent in January to 6.54 per cent in February.
“Total credit to the economy has also continued to increase from about N15.69tn in February 2019 to N17.62tn in February 2020.”
He noted that the introduction of the Loan to Deposit Ratio policy made the total credit to increase by N2.35tn between end of May 2019 and March 17, 2020.
“Manufacturing, consumer credit, general commerce, ICT and agriculture continue to receive the highest share of this new credit,” he said.
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Sanusi listed some of the interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria to mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.
These measures, he stated, included an extended moratorium on loans by one year to ease repayments given the cash flow disruptions and reduction of interest rate on all interventions from nine per cent to five per cent over the next one year.
It also includes the introduction of time-limited regulatory forbearance for DMBs to temporarily restructure terms of loans and tenors to businesses and households affected by the COVID-19 containment measures.
Sanusi also mentioned a total of N3.5tn in various targeted interventions to support the economy during the difficult times, including support for local pharmaceutical firms to manufacture the drugs and medical supplies needed in the fight against the pandemic.
According to him, the outlook for the rest of the year remained poor as Nigeria joined the rest of the world in enforcing the public health containment measures against the spread of COVID-19.
“As major cities and urban centres lockdown, the real output would necessarily decline in what can be seen as an intentional and unavoidable recession,” he said.
Yetunde Adegoke
