Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
About 28 commercial and merchant banks operating in Nigeria have been fined a total of N1.4 trillion by the industry watchdog, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
A report by Reuters on Friday said the affected financial institutions were levied based on issues surrounding cash reserve ratio (CRR).
However, it was pointed out that the total amount deducted from the CRR of the affected lenders was more than 27.5 percent target set for them.
Recall that in January 2020, the apex bank raised the CRR by 500 basis points to 27.5 percent. This was the first rise in four years and the action was taken to curb excess liquidity in the banking system, which the CBN said was contributing to inflation.
From the deductions, Zenith Bank had the highest amount, N355.95 billion, followed by First Bank with N208.1 billion and UBA with N204.75 billion.
Also, Standard Chartered Bank was charged N120.65 billion, while Stanbic IBTC had N143.97 billion deducted from its reserves with the central bank.
This is not the first time in recent times the CBN is levying banks for regulatory issues. Last year, after it asked lenders to increase their loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) to 60 percent by end of September, the CBN fined erring banks nearly N500 billion.
The central bank has been coming up with policies to improve lending in the country, which it expects to boost the economy, which before now had been struggling to fully recover from the 2016 recession.
While the recovery process was going on, the coronavirus pandemic and the crashing of crude oil prices at the global market has dented efforts of both local fiscal and monetary authorities at getting the economy back on its feet.
Business Post reports that the falling crude oil prices forced the federal government to revise the benchmark in the 2020 budget to $30 per barrel from $57 per barrel.
While the new crude oil benchmark is still undergoing approval of the parliament, prices have further declined to $20 per barrel, which is still not favourable to Nigeria, which depends hugely on sale of the commodity for revenue to run government activities.
The central bank uses cash reserve levies to mop up liquidity and then re-injects the liquidity to stabilise markets. Reuters said in its report that apex bank “did not respond to request for comment.”
Why is CBN slamming all these panalties on the banks at this time businesses are struggling to survive, do they want to crumble the banks as well, or are they trying to raise the fund for the government?