Banks’ credit to private sector drops to N46.53trn in nine months —NBS

Banking sector report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the banking sector credit to the private sector between January and September this year stood at N46.53 trillion.

A breakdown of the bank loans of N45.58 trillion, indicated that credit to the private sector in the first quarter was estimated at N15.6 trillion, N26 billion drop compared to the first quarter credit of N15.34 trillion.

The report released at the weekend stated that in the third quarter, the banking sector provided a total funding of N15.58 trillion representing an increase of N249 billion over the second quarter figure of N15.34 trillion.

According to NBS, oil and gas and manufacturing sectors got N3.59 trillion and N2.15 trillion credit allocations, the highest credit allocations as at the third quarter.

“In terms of credit to private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the bank stood at N15.59 trillion as at Q3 2018. Oil and gas and manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.59 trillion and N2.15 trillion to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review,” said the report.

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In terms of banking transactions, the NBS in the report stated that about 5,294,871,285 transactions valued at N340.15 trillion were recorded in the third quarter.

It said that based on data on electronic payment channels in the Nigeria Banking Sector, the Automated Teller Machine transactions dominated the volume of transactions recording 220,270,371 transactions valued at N1.59 trillion.

It said as at the third quarter, the total number of banks’ staff increased by 0.95 per cent from 101,861 in the second quarter to 102,821.