BEVERLY HILLS, June 11, (THEWILL) – The Central Bank on Nigeria (CBN) has given local banks till August 1, 2015, to publish names of serial debtors.
Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, made the development public Thursday during a press briefing on the outcome of the 322 Bankers Committee meeting in Abuja.
“You will recall that at the last Bankers Committee meeting, we discussed about publishing the names of serial debtors of banks.
“We discussed this again because of the fact that the date is drawing close.
“Last time we had the meeting, we said that there should be three months of grace to give the debtors the opportunity to put the facilities back to performing status.
“So, by the 1st of August, any debtor that hasn’t done so, the name will be published by the bank.
“So, the banks are encouraged to speak to their customers that fall into that category that they should put in more effort to pay off,’’ she said.
Martins said that the total credit currently in the system was between N13 and N14 trillion and about three per cent of it was non-performing.
She stressed that banks had an upper limit target of five per cent.
On the electronic banking space, the Chief Executive of UBA, Mr. Phillips Oduoza, said that 12.5 million customers had been enrolled on the Bank Verification Number (BVN) exercise.
“We believe that this is a substantial mileage that we have made and there is still room to close the gap knowing that the deadline for everybody to enroll is June 30th.
“In the event that any customer is not enrolled, it is possible that the customer may not be able to enjoy a lot of the banking services.
“As such, we will urge all customers of banks to enroll so that they would continue to enjoy unhindered services from the banks,’’ he said.
According to him, customers who fail to enroll may not enjoy credit facilities, foreign exchange services and internet banking services, among others.
On the cashless policy, Oduoza said with the progress made so far, the policy would be extended to every part of the country before the end of third quarter.
On the foreign exchange market, Mr Jubril Aku of Ecobank said that the committee reviewed the sector and would continue to partner CBN to meet legitimate needs of customers.
Mr. Henry Semenitari, Chief Executive Officer of Unity Bank, said the committee also reviewed the enhancement witnessed in the credit culture in the sector.
He said that the culture would now be extended to other financial institutions of Insurance and non-banking institutions within the banking space.
