Business
Economist Tasks Banks On Financial Inclusion Schemes
An economist in Port
Harcourt, Dr. Titus Nwibari has urged Commercial Banks in the country to embark on aggressive financial inclusion programmes, as a way of sourcing for funds to support the real sector.
Nwibari who made the call recently in Port Harcourt while reacting to the Central Bank’s recently raised Commercial banks Cash Reserve Ratio on Public Sector deposit, shortly after a forum, said that the implication was that banks would need to source for funds from the Private Sector by encouraging them through financial inclusion.
On defining financial inclusion, the economic expert explained that it is a state where adult Nigerians would have easier access to a broad range of financial services to meet their needs at affordable costs.
Nwibari also said that Commercial Banks expansion of the funds stream would compel banks to lend to the real sector which also have attendant multiplier effects on the economy.
He stated that the increase in Public Sector CRR means that the CBN would have to hold more of public funds in its vaults, adding that the development would stop cheap money for banks and also reduce lending that could become bad debt in future.
That is a blessing in disguise for banks. It will make them to reduce their lending particularly during the forthcoming general elections”, he stated.
According to him, the CRR increase was good, stressing that it would help to tame the effect of rising inflation in 2014, as the increase rose from 50 percent to 75 per cent.
Corlins Walter