Businessday :: News you can trust

Tuesday
Feb 09th
Text size
  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home Money Banking & Finance CBN chess game: The master stroke of ‘killing two birds with one stone’

CBN chess game: The master stroke of ‘killing two birds with one stone’

E-mail Print PDF
User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 
Just like in the game of snooker, hit a ball and you send many into the holes. What Central 
 Bank of Nigeria (CBN) started as an ordinary announcement on August 14, has become more than interesting, intriguing and exciting. 
The action is actually yielding results as it is indeed interesting to see interest rates and exchange rates re-arrange themselves without much ado. 
Even though inter-bank lending rates initially responded negatively to the injection of new funds into the five troubled banks, as exchange rates made no move to acknowledge the sack of the five banks’ chief executives. 
However, with the possibility of foreign investors flooding the economy with dollars again, signs are beginning to emerge that ‘critical’ decision taken by the apex bank may eventually resolve the twin problem of high interest rates and depreciating naira.
It was no wonder Razia Khan, regional head of research Africa, Standard Chartered Bank, believed previous policies made by the CBN to arrest the twin problem might appear to be like a game of chess.
She listed a few policies made by the apex bank which could not reverse the ugly situation on ground. These include the cancellation of the Expanded Discount Window (EDW), official guarantee on inter-bank lending that commercial paper, banker’s acceptances can no longer be treated as off balance sheet items.
But with the mere announcement, things are beginning to happen. What then brought about the troubled water? Many maintained it was the ripple effect which the CBN had earlier denied had nothing to do with Nigeria.
One of the possible reasons Khan gave was that Africa, with Nigeria as the second largest economy, witnessed the largest percentage of withdrawal of foreign credit in the last quarter of 2008.
She said withdrawal of foreign credit from sub-Saharan Africa declined by over 50 percent; withdrawal from Latin America was by about 20 percent, while withdrawal from Asia and emerging Europe was by over 10 percent.
The scenario, when analysed from the level of lending to developing countries, showed highly reduced interest in sub-Saharan Africa. She said the level of lending to Asia, excluding Japan, is 30.8 percent of total lending to developing countries, while emerging Europe grabbed 20.8 percent, Latin America got 15.5 percent; Middle East had 12.2 percent, and sub-Saharan Africa got only 2.8 percent.  
In another investment profile release by AllianceBernstein Global High Income Fund in its monthly portfolio, puts the United States of America accounting for 44.94 percent of total fixed-income holding; Russia followed with 9.50 percent, Brazil accounted for 6.82 percent, while Indonesia and Argentina accounted for 3.88 percent and 3.36 percent respectively.
Leading from the back are Belgium accounting for 0.04 percent, Poland 0.08 percent, Italy holds 0.09 percent, while Nigeria holds 0.11 percent. But with the decision of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, CBN governor, to look outside the country for investment in these troubled banks, if the current efforts in Europe yields good dividend, experts say the return of foreign credit may not only flood the financial system with foreign currencies, but could also bring down lending rates as more liquidity will flow in.
Also, with the N25.5 billion so far recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), more liquidity will be pouring into the financial system, thereby easing illiquidity. 



 

Add your comment

Your name:
Subject:
Comment:
  The word for verification. Lowercase letters only with no spaces.
Word verification:

Crude Oil Price

Share on facebook

Users' inputs

Currency Converter

Amount:
From:
To:


Weather

Paper Boy

Newsletter



Receive HTML?