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As Banks’ bad loans tickup 16%

By Elizabeth Adegbesan

ECONOMY

The value of electronic payment transactions rose year-on-year (YoY) by 325 per cent to N704.04 trillion in 2020 from N165.8 trillion in 2019, just as the volume of e-payment transactions rose YoY by 142 percent to 7.16 billion in 2020 from 2.96 billion in 2019.

This development appears to have been spurred by COVID-19 environment which compelled less physical interaction in business and other relationships in 2020.

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Data just released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) titled, ‘‘Selected Banking Sector Report’’, further showed that value of Non Performing Loans (NPLs) ticked up by 16 percent to N1.23 trillion in 2020 from N1.05 trillion in 2019.

However, the uptick in NPL followed a sharp rise in banks’ credit to the private sector which grew by 121 percent to N77.53 trillion in 2020 from N64.11 trillion in 2019.

In the Report, the NBS stated:”A total volume of 3,464,811,083 transactions valued at N356.47 trillion was recorded in the fourth quarter of last year (Q4’20) as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigerian banking sector revealed.

“Online transfers dominated the volume of transactions recorded. 2,227,449,949 volume of online transfer transactions valued at N120.27 trillion were recorded in Q4’20.

“In terms of credit to the private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the banks stood at N20.37 trillion as of Q4’20.

“Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.93 trillion and N3.19 trillion to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review.

“As of Q4’20, the total number of banks’ staff decreased by -0.90 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) from 95,888 in Q3 2020 to 95,026.”