By Baron Ike
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has admonished banks in the country to support the efforts of the federal government in creating jobs for the teeming unemployed in Nigeria.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele who spoke in Abuja on Tuesday said that banks should be major players in growing the economy.
Emefiele cautioned that the era of armchair banking was over and that there was no more room for money changers in the banking sector of the financial economy.
Emefiele who also said said the days of non-performing loans (NPLs)was over in the country noted, “as anyone who benefits from any facility must pay back”.
Represented by the Deputy Governor, Economic Policy, Dr. Joseph Nnanna, at the opening of the 12th Annual Banking and Finance Conference, the CBN governor, said: “We do not want the banks to be money changers. Banking is not banking if you only play in the government fixed income space.
“Banking becomes meaningful when you take liquidity excesses from your surplus centres and channel them into scarce areas, that way you are transforming liquidity into assets and you are growing the economy and creating employment.”
He reiterated that the era when banks deployed their assets in fixed income instruments particularly Treasury Bills (TBs) and Bonds at the expense of the real sector “is over” and charged the banking sector to live up to its core responsibility of stimulating the economy by advancing credit to the real sector to create jobs for teeming population.
Emefiele said: “Today, with our new generation banks, the players of this space are digital in nature. We have gone beyond armchair banking where players play safe. Today, the CBN is calling on the banking system to be alive to its responsibility. We cannot conceive an economy without banks and neither can we conceive banks without an economy.
“What do I mean by this? What I am simply saying is that the days of armchair banking, playing in the treasury bills space- those days are right behind us. The CBN is bullish and we have in fact, taken our responsibility very seriously.
“In the past months, we have come with new initiatives. The loans to deposit ratio is aimed at transforming liquidity management into risk asset management and asset transformation.
“We must support the government in creating jobs for the teeming population.
“We have also tried to de-risk the banking industry. The days of non-performing loans are behind us and we call upon the judiciary to assist us in this regard.
“We shall learn to borrow in the old fashion way; by paying back when we have accessed facility from the banks. As Nigerians, the future of our country is in our hands and that future must be defined by the banking industry. Without money, we go nowhere in any economy in the world: with money we can go places.”