By Chioma Obinagwam
Borrowings by commercial banks from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the country’s apex bank, has increased to N11.7 trillion in fourth quarter(Q4) of 2017, CBN’s 2017 Q4 economic report disclosed.
The accretion is attributable to consistent mop up activity through Open Market Operation (OMO) as indicated by the report.
The report which was released on Thursday, disclosed that borrowings consist of N7.27 trillion direct Standing Lending Facility(SLF) and N4.4 trillion Intra-day Lending Facilities (ILF) converted to overnight repo.
“Total request for SLF (including the ILF converted to overnight repo) amounted to N11,733.72 billion, made up of N7,266.11 billion direct SLF and N4,467.61 billion ILF converted to overnight repo,” it indicated.
“Daily average for the 59 transaction days (October 1 – December 27, 2017) was N198.88 billion, with daily request ranging from N67.35 billion to N383.53 billion,” it continued.
Meanwhile, it further disclosed that total amount released by CBN under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) as at end-December 2017 from inception to the participating banks for disbursement stood at N551.18 billion for 547 projects.
A breakdown of the amount show that Zenith Bank Plc led 20 commercial disbursed amount followed by Sterling Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA).
Zenith Bank in 2017 disbursed N114.65 billion to 72 projects while Sterling Bank and UBA disbursed
N68.61 billion and
N67.06 billion respectively.
However, the report further indicated that the apex bank recorded N8.04 billion as Interest Income from commercial banks through frequent borrowings in the period under review.
“Total interest earned was N8.04 billion. SLF was at its peak on October 10, 2017 due to consistent mop up activity through OMO,” the economic report revealed.