… Lowest since Q2’16
Nigeria’s drive to improve bank lending to the private sector was stifled with the sector receiving N15.1trillion in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018, the lowest since Q2 2016 recording N15.5 trillion, according to the newly released banking sector report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, bank credits to the private sector declined marginally by 2.9 percent to N15.1 trillion in Q4 2018 from N15.6 trillion in Q3 2018.
Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got the highest credit allocation of N3.55trillion and N2.23trillion under the reviewed period.
Also from the report, a total volume of 616.5 million transactions valued at N39.15trrillion were recorded in Q4 2018 as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigeria Banking Sector revealed.
NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded. NIP transactions had volume of 228.2 million valued at N23.57trillion in Q4 2018.
The total number of banks’ staffs increased quarter-on-quarter by 1.80 to 104,669 percent in Q4 2018 from 102,821in Q3 2018.
