The Central Bank of Nigeria released its monthly Average Deposit and Lending rates as at April 10 2015 and published it in page 52 of the Punch Newspaper of April 15, 2015. The publication had a list of 21 Nigerian banks including their respective deposit (savings, demand and time) rates and lending rates (prime and maximum) to major sectors of the economy such as Agriculture, Real Estate, Mortgage, General Commerce etc.
Of critical note to us in all of the figures we saw was the rate most banks charge for mortgage lending. According to the data the least prime rate we saw was 11% and that was charged by Ecobank. The highest prime lending rate for mortgage loans we saw was 28% by Skye Bank Plc.
In terms of maximum lending rate (the highest a bank charges for lending) we found out that Standard Chartered Bank had the least with 18%. In fact, the CBN put the bank’s prime and maximum lending rate for mortgage products at 18% per annum. The highest maximum lending rate for the banks was Ecobank at an astonishing 35% per annum. Skye Bank came close second at 31% per annum. In fact, Skye Bank is by the data the most expensive bank to get a mortgage loan from.
One wonders how in this world Nigerians are expected to own a home at such high rates.