It was a bad day at the office for Nigerian banks today (22/1/2014) as the NSE Banking Index lost a whopping N86.5billion in value today alone. This is one of the highest one day loss in over six months and is as a result of the CBN Monetary Policy decision to increase CRR to 75% from 50%. Already analyst are projecting a potential annual loss of N110billion “assuming a 12% interest rates” on public deposits for these banks.
Industry leaders, GTB, Zenith, UBA, FBNH and Access Banks all took bug hits loosing 1.9%, 3.03%, 1.89%, 6.21% and 4.04% respectively. The lost depicts the markets belief that the industry will take a massive dip in profits in the coming months. I expect this sell off to continue this week long.