Banking Sector Credit Rises By 2.9% To N15trn

TRACKING>>Credit from the banking sector to the Nigerian economy rose slightly by 2.92 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2018 to N15.134 trillion, according to data released yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The data showed that the oil and gas industry accounted for the lion share, taking up 23.45 per cent of the total credit given by the sector.

Credit to the oil and gas industry stood at N3.54 trillion followed by the manufacturing industry which had N2.23 trillion, accounting for 14.7 per cent of the total credit.

NBS said that banking industry investment in government securities as at the end of the fourth quarter stood at N1.36 trillion, accounting for nine per cent of total credit.

The industry’s credit to finance and insurance as well as investments in the capital market during the period under consideration was N1.1 trillion, representing 7.3 per cent of total credit while trade and general commerce got 7.1 per cent or N1.06 trillion.

The share of the banking sector credit to agriculture remained within the four per cent band with N610.149 billion which was 4.03 per cent of total credit.

The NBS report also showed that a total volume of 616.528 million transactions valued at N39.15 trillion were recorded in Q4 2018 as data on electronic payment channels in the Banking Sector.

NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded as 228.209 million of NIP transactions valued at N23.57 trillion were recorded during the period.

As at Q4 2018, the total number of banks personnel increased by 1.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter from 102,821 in Q3 2018 to 104,669, the report added.