Credit facilities allocated to the private sector by banks in the fourth quarter of 2017 decreased to N15.74 trillion from the N15.83 trillion recorded in the third quarter, a Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, report has shown.
This was disclosed in a report titled, “Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, e – Payment Channels, and Staff Strength,” which was published on the bureau’s website on Monday.
In the report, the Oil and Gas and Manufacturing sectors got the highest credit allocations of N3.58 trillion and N2.17 trillion respectively.
The credit allocation was divided into three categories: Agriculture, Industry, and Services.
For agriculture, the report shows that 3.36 per cent of the total credit granted, worth N528.2 billion, was allocated.
Industry, mining and quarrying accounted for 0.16 per cent of the total credit worth N25.3 billion. Manufacturing, being the second highest benefactor of the bank credits in the fourth quarter accounted for 13.79 per cent of the total credits.
Oil andgas; power and energy accounted for 22.72 per cent and 2.88 per cent respectively. The credit allocated to power and energy was worth N 453.9 billion.
Under the services category, construction was allocated 4.17 per cent of the total credit worth over N657 billion and general commerce (Trade) accounted for 6.50 per cent, worth N1.02 trillion.
The government received 8.84 per cent of the credit worth N1.4 trillion. Real estate was allocated 4.79 per cent worth N753.6 billion.
Finance, insurance and the capital market took up 7.15 per cent of the total credit worth N1.13 trillion, among other services.
On the data for electronic payments in the Nigerian banking sector in the fourth quarter of 2017, the report revealed that a total volume of about N462 million transactions worth N29.44 trillion were carried out.
Automated Teller Machine, ATM, transactions dominated the volume of electronic payment transactions recorded with 239.7 million transactions worth N1.8 trillion.
The report also showed that the total number of bank staff increased by 9.19 per cent in the fourth quarter. In real terms, this meanns the figure increased to 90, 453 persons from the 82,840 persons recorded in the third quarter of 2017.
