As the race for commercial banks’ recapitalisation peaks and the global commerce landscape quakes in the face of the raging US-China tariff war, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has assured Nigerians not to panic as the local financial ecosystem remains stable with the banks operating within set prudential thresholds.
Director, Banking Supervision Department of the apex bank, Dr Olubukola Akinwumi, stated this in Abuja, yesterday, at the 36th seminar of the Finance Correspondents and Business Editors.
According to him, all the guidelines and prudential benchmarks have been complied with by the banks including non-performing loans, thus making the banking sector healthy.
He promised that calculated steps would be taken to keep the economy on a steady growth trajectory, especially to realise the $1 trillion GDP economy by 2030.
He said: “The banks are in good health. They are working within set templates.”
Earlier in her remarks, the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services of the CBN, Ms Emem Usoro, represented by the acting Director, Corporate Communications, Mrs Hakama Sidi-Ali assured that the apex bank will continue to provide a strong platform to interact with the media.
In his presentation, the Group Managing Director of United Bank of Africa (UBA), Oliver Alawuba, said a double digit economic growth of 10 per cent was achievable, just as he listed various challenges to attaining the $1 trillion GDP economy by 2030.
He said: “10 per cent growth is achievable if we set out to do it. We grew to 3.84% in Q4 2024 and that was the highest made since 2021 of 3.46%.
“We have many challenges like high inflation, naira depreciation, regulator challenges, security concerns, infrastructure deficit, financial accessibility and inclusion and more.
“Security is very critical to economic growth. Anything we’re doing revolves around insecurity.
“Infrastructure deficit is a big issue. From poor roads and epileptic power supply, there are many things to address under infrastructure.
“A client in Tanzania says he enjoys 24/7 electricity at five per cent cost. How will a Nigerian entrepreneur compete with him?
“Banks must be positioned to fund infrastructure in Nigeria. Banks also needs to be incentivised
“Nigerian banks are capable of managing the reserves of Nigeria. We are already doing this for banks in Africa. We can use Nigerian money to develop Nigeria. Nigerians take this money out and we come back to borrow it. We should end this,” he said.
Alawuba also called for increased fortification of Nigeria’s digital architecture to close cybersecurity gaps.
“There’s a report that banks lost N52 billion and we need to tackle this and it requires collaboration with various stakeholders to build platforms to protect banks and ultimately safeguard depositors’ funds”, he said.
He also noted that strong oversight was needed for prudent capital deployment into the real economy.
“According to Afrinvest, banks need N4.1 trillion to meet new capital requirements. We should work towards this.
“CBN and banks must jointly sensitise stakeholders on policy rationale and this speaks to strategic communication,” he added.
