Nigerians Received N850bn Loan From Banks In First Quarter- CBN

Nigerians received loan facilities closed to a trillion naira between January to March, a move to boost production and help the country fully recover from the 2020 recession.

The Central Bank of Nigeria disclosed in its communiqué for the 279th Monetary Policy Committee meeting that banking sector loan rose to N23.53trn due to the additional N850bn disbursed by banks and other financial institutions in the first three months.

The apex bank had since last year clamped down on lenders who failed to meet up with its Loan to Deposit Ratio leading to a total credit of N22.68trn by the end of December 2020.

CBN’s LDR is 65 per cent which banks were expected to comply with by the end of December 2019.

“Gross banking sector credit at the end-March 2021 stood at N23.53trn compared with N22.68trn at
end-December 2020,” CBN said.

Commercial and merchant banks gave out N660bn loan, microfinance banks gave out N130bn, development finance institutions released N50bn, while primary mortgage banks and finance companies released N10bn.

Nigeria fell into recession last year, but it has slipped out of the recession as the economy grew by 0.11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 and by 0.51 per cent in the first quarter of 2021.

Apart from the country’s inflation at 18.12 per cent, consumer spending became worse when the Covid-19 depleted the income of most Nigerians.

A national lockdown to contain the pandemic spread had crumbled most businesses which the regulator had to battle.