CBN Says Banks Recovered N50.32m Bad Loans Within 9 Days

Nigerian banks recovered about N50.32m bad loans from debtors within nine days after the country commenced operations of the Global Standing Instruction (GSI).

This was disclosed by Kevin Amugo, Director, Financial Policy and Regulation at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday at a webinar organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria Dialogue Series 3.0 in Lagos.

The GSI policy became operational from August 1, 2020, as banks struggled to keep their Non Performing Loans ratio low to curb failure and instability in the industry.

Amugo said the recovery was made possible by the lending banks through the activation of the GSI protocol.

According to him, “The CBN had introduced the GSI as part of measures to curtail the rising Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) in the Nigerian banks and its impacts on the industry.

“It was specifically introduced to support the banking industry in reducing the rate of unserviced loans, improve loan recovery and recovery efforts of banks.

“The amount recovered was, however, insignificant compared with the total of N1.66 billion worth of bad debts by 26,057 customers triggered by the lending banks.

“The size of the recovered NPLs was due to the fact that the CBN was still working on the GSI protocol for non-individual debtors, which means the recovery was made from individual loan defaulters.”