In December 2022, Deposit Money Banks gave their clients 130,854 new credits worth N947.46 billion, according to a report by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Adeola Adenikinju, a member of the MPC, revealed this in his personal statement at the most recent committee meeting.He also revealed that in 2022, industrial credit would increase by N5.14 trillion while industry assets would increase by N14.36 trillion.
Assets, deposits, and credit all increased year over year, according to Adenikinju. From the end of December 2021 and the end of 2022, the banking sector’s total assets increased by N14.36 trillion. At the same time period, industry credit also grew by N5.14 trillion.
“In addition, total industry deposits rose by N7.08tn between end-December 2021 and 2022. In December 2022, a total of 130,854 new credits valued at N947.46bn were granted to various customers.”
The MPC member also disclosed that there was an increase in the maximum lending rate from 28.14 per cent to 29.13 per cent.
“Interest rate spread month-on-month widened to 23.42 per cent in December 2022, as maximum lending rate increased from 28.14 per cent to 29.13 per cent and average savings rate rose from 3.93 per cent to 4.13 per cent between November and December 2022, respectively,” Adenikinju added.
This took place under the CBN’s currency redesign scheme, which caused naira shortages for many Nigerians. Over N2.57 trillion worth of money was available outside of banks in December of last year. According to the most recent information available from the Money and Credit Statistics on the CBN website, this value plummeted to N788.92bn in January 2023.
The data that are currently available show that this decreased by 69.26% between December 2022 and January 2023. As a result, the CBN was able to recover N1.78 trillion from the money kept outside of banks.
The statistics also showed that there would be N1.62 trillion (or 53.82%) less money in circulation in January 2023 compared to December, when there would be N3.01 trillion.
This came as a biting shortage of new naira notes and an acute scarcity of old currency, which combined to inflict untold hardship and pain on millions of Nigerians, leaving several people stranded. 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.
