CBN: Nigerian banks weathering the storm of COVID-19

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele has praised Nigeria’s banking industry for responding well to the economic hardship imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The global economy has been thrown into turmoil since the coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China.

But Nigerian banks are doing just fine, Emefiele said. The banking resilience did not come about without help from the CBN, the governor said during the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.

“The impact of the CBN interventionist activities has been positive, without which the positive GDP growth recorded in the first quarter of the year prior to the pandemic would not have been possible,” Emefiele said.

“…neither would the somewhat reduced contraction of the economy to -6.1 per cent in the second quarter against projections of over -7.4 per cent have been possible.”