Lending by Nigerian banks to the private sector dropped marginally by 1.6 percent from N15.6 trillion allocated within the first quarter of 2018 to N15.34 trillion in the second quarter.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in its 2018 Q2 report titled: Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength (Q2 2018).
The report indicated that loans to the power and energy sector dropped to N416.34 billion, while that of the mining and quarry fell to N10.18 billion.
It, however, noted that total lending to the agriculture sector increased to N523.08 billion while the oil & gas and manufacturing sectors got credit allocations of N3.45trn and N2.02trn to record the highest credit allocations within the period under review.
Furthermore, the NBS stated that a total volume of 509,668,433 transactions valued at N32.90 trillion, were recorded in Q2 as data on electronic payment channels in the Nigerian financial sector.
Also, it said, automated teller machine (ATM) transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded, totaling N1,603 billion in the review period. This is just as total number of bank staff increased by 13.67 percent from 89,608 in Q1 to 101,861.
