Stanbic IBTC to publish list of loan defaulters
Nigeria’s
Stanbic IBTC, the local unit of South Africa’s Standard Bank, said yesterday it
will publish the list of loan defaulters in line with a new directive by the
central bank.
Stanbic IBTC
would be among the first banks to publish such a list after the regulator
ordered lenders in April to crack down on non-performing loans to forestall a
repeat of a 2009 industry bailout that cost the government $4 billion.
The new plan
requires banks to give bad debtors three months to square their accounts,
following which they would be named in Nigerian media and barred from taking
part in currency and government debt markets in Africa’s biggest economy.
Stanbic said
in a statement that in addition to publishing a list of defaulters by the end
of August, it would also use legal and other means to recover non-performing
loans.
While
issuing its order, the central bank did not give an estimate of the level of
non-performing loans held by banks.
In 2009, the
central bank rescued several banks that had lent mainly to the oil and gas
sector just before crude prices collapsed, triggering a near-collapse of eight
commercial banks.
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