Business - November 30, 2019

Emefiele thumps up Nigeria’s financial system *Says it’s getting stronger

Espinews November 30, 2019

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Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele said the country’s financial system is getting stronger and more resilient with capital buffers and liquidity in the sector improving.

He said this Friday, at the 54th Annual Bankers Dinner held in Lagos.

Speaking on the theme: “Delivering a strong Sustainable Growth for the Nigerian Economy”, Emefiele said, the impact of a tighter monetary policy regime, attractive yields in the money market and that the industry wide Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) has increased from 10.2 per cent in December 2017 to 15.5 per cent in September 2019.

He noted that, the percentage of non-performing loans in the banking sector has declined from its high of 14.7 per cent in January 2017 to under seven per cent as at October 2019.

Continuing, Emefiele said credit conditions in the banking system have improved by our new policy measures announced in June 2019 which requires banks to maintain a minimum 65 per cent loan to deposit ratio.

“In addition, banks are now able to recover delinquent loans from a customer’s accounts in other banks. As a result, gross credit increased by N1.16 trillion between May and October 2019 and this increase has been along all critical sectors of economy such as manufacturing, agriculture, telecom services and the creative industry to mention a few. The measures have placed our banks in a much better position towards supporting a stronger economic recovery,” he said.

“With a moderated inflation rate, positive GDP growth and improvements in our external reserve position, the naira-dollar exchange rate at the I&E window has remained stable for the past 29 months at N360 – $1 and we have witnessed significant convergence in the exchange rate across the various market windows”.(The Nation)