Yemisi Izuora
Stanbic IBTC, the local unit of South Africa’s Standard Bank in response to directive of the apex bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will make public list of loan defaulters.
Stanbic IBTC would be among the first banks to publish such a list after the regulator directed lenders in April to go after non-performing loans to forestall a repeat of a 2009 industry bailout that cost the government $4 billion.
The new plan requires banks to give bad debtors three months to square their accounts, following which they would be named in Nigerian media and barred from taking part in currency and government debt markets in Africa’s biggest economy.
Stanbic said in a statement today that in addition to publishing a list of defaulters by the end of August, it would also use legal and other means to recover non-performing loans.
While issuing its order, the central bank did not give an estimate of the level of non-performing loans held by banks.
In 2009, the central bank rescued several banks that had lent mainly to the oil and gas sector just before crude prices collapsed, triggering a near-collapse of eight commercial banks.