Six commercial banks have on Tuesday confirmed full operations across all their branches nationwide. This was in line with the government’s directive that they resume full operations after the lockdown was eased across several states in the federation.
The banks include United Bank for Africa, Wema Bank, Fidelity Bank, Sterling Bank, Unity Bank and Providus Bank Limited. This showed that only 18.18 per cent of the 33 Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-licenced Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and Financial Holding Companies (HoldCos) complied with the directive.
They include eight commercial banks with international authorisation, 11 commercial banks with national authorisation and three commercial banks with regional authorisation are in operation.
Others are one non-interest bank with national authorisation, one non-interest bank with regional authorisation, five merchant banks and four financial holding companies.
The Federal Government had directed that DMBs and financial HoldCos to resume full operation across all their branches on June 2.
The directive was also in line with the government’s decision to gradually ease the lockdown across the country to enable banks resume full operations based on prescribed directives.
The reopening and getting the banks to operate fully across their branches was to enable the lenders ease the challenges faced by many of their customers who do not have access to digital banking channels.
But nine days after the directive was given, 82 per cent of the banks were still providing skeletal services, reopening only few of their branches, and in most cases failing to keep their most widely used e-channels, the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point of Sale (PoS) terminals in good working conditions.
