By Our Reporter
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele on Monday said CBN has facilitated a credit of N3.3trillion to the productive sectors of the economy.
He spoke at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.
It has also given intervention funds to businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and endorsed the restructuring of loans.
Emefiele said the loans were granted to manufacturing (N815billion), retail and consumer loan (N615billion), agriculture, forestry and fishery (N255bilion), general commerce (N221billion) and information and communications technology (N208billion) through the implementation of the Loan-to-Deposit Ratio (LDR).
CBN, he said, adjusted the LDR to 58.5 per cent by May.
The LDR is reviewed quarterly to improve lending to the real sector.
It was pegged at 60 per cent in September 2019 following CBN’s directive to all banks to maintain the rate as a minimum LDR.
Emefiele said the introduction of the LDR has improved credit to key sectors, as loans from banks to the sectors has increased from N15.6trillion in June 2019 to N18.9trillion a year later.
The CBN governor also confirmed the disbursement of N49.195 billion of the approved N50 billion Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) (COVID-19) loan to 92,000 beneficiaries as of June 30.
He said the banking system remains very strong, as non-performing loans were 11.1 per cent in May last year but dropped to 6.4 per cent as of June this year.
“For Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) which measures the size of capital that a bank deploys into risk asset, as at June 2019, CAR was 15.2 per cent but as at June 2020, it remains flat at 15 per cent.
“Liquidity ratio, in August 2019, was 48 per cent but as of June 2020, it had dropped to 37 per cent.
“In spite of these large sums granted, from N15.6trillion to about N18.9trillion, the prudential ratios are still looking so strong.
“This is a clear demonstration that the Nigerian banking sector remains very strong and resilient and able to support the economy,” Emefiele said.
