According to a document by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria offered 130,854 new credits worth N947.46bn to their customers in December 2022.
This was disclosed by Adeola Adenikinju, a member of the MPC, in his personal statement at the last meeting of the committee.
Adenikinju also disclosed that the banking industry assets rose by N14.36tn, while industry credit rose by N5.14tn in 2022. All measures of industry aggregates including assets, deposits, and credit rose year-on-year, with total assets of the banking industry growing by N14.36tn between the end of December 2021 and 2022.
Similarly, industry credit increased by N5.14tn over the same period while the total industry deposits rose by N7.08tn between end-December 2021 and 2022.
In December 2022 alone, a total of 130,854 new credits valued at N947.46bn were granted to various customers.
However, despite the growth in the banking sector, there was an increase in the maximum lending rate from 28.14 percent to 29.13 percent, which widened the interest rate spread to 23.42 percent in December 2022.
This occurred amid the naira redesign policy of the CBN, which led to a scarcity of naira for many Nigerians. In December 2022, the amount of currency outside banks was about N2.57tn, which crashed to N788.92bn in January 2023, according to the latest data from the Money and Credit Statistics on the website of the CBN.
This was a decrease of 69.26 percent between December 2022 and January 2023, and it meant that the CBN retrieved N1.78tn from the money outside banks.
The shortage of new naira notes and the acute scarcity of old currency combined to inflict untold hardship and pain on millions of Nigerians, leaving several people stranded.
Nonetheless, the total assets of the banking industry grew by N14.36tn or 24.24 per cent from N59.24tn at the end of December 2021 to N73.59tn in the corresponding period of 2022. This is a positive indicator for the Nigerian banking sector and shows that the sector is steadily growing.
