Senate Probes CBN, Banks Over Lending Rate

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial banks in the country yesterday came under fire in the Senate over prohibitive lending rates of about 30 per cent.
This is even as the upper Chamber directed its Committee on Banking, Insurance and other financial institutions, Finance and Legislative Compliance to probe the prohibitive lending rate of commercial banks in the country.
The panel, according to the Senate, is to “investigate the rationale behind the huge difference between deposit and lending interest rates as obtained among commercial banks and other financial institutions” in the country.
The position of the Upper Chamber followed a motion titled: “Urgent need to reduce the gap between lending interest rate and deposit interest rate among commercial banks and other financial institutions”, sponsored by Senator Solomon Adeola (Lagos West).
Adeola,while leading the debate, noted that there was a huge divergence between the deposit and lending rates in Nigeria.
He said that the Senate was worried that Nigeria’s current lending rate is one of the highest in the world.
He said that savings deposit rate as at December 2019 was 3.89 per cent while the prime and maximum lending rates were 14.99 per cent and 30.72 per cent in the same period.