CBN’s order to banks on dividend payments could not have come at a better time
Worried by the tide of rising Non-Performing Loans (NPLs), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last week directed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and discount houses (DHs) with huge bad loans and low capital base to stop payment of dividends to shareholders.
Part of the letter dated January 31, read: “Globally, retained earnings have been identified as an important source of growing an institution’s capital. Advantages of retained earnings include being a source of long-term finance; being easier and cheaper to raise than external finance; curtailment of financial risks; and improving liquidity and profitability.
“However, it has been observed that rather than take advantage of this beneficial means of capital generation, some institutions pay out a greater proportion of their profits, irrespective of their risk profile and the need to build resilience through adequate capital buffers.”
“Any Deposit Money Bank or discount house that does not meet the minimum capital adequacy ratio shall not be allowed to pay dividend.
“The DMBs and DHs that have a Composite Risk Rating of ‘High’ or a non-performing loan ratio of above 10 per cent shall not be allowed to pay dividend.
“The DMBs and DHs that meet the minimum capital adequacy ratio but have a CRR of ‘Above Average’ or an NPL ratio of more than five per cent but less than 10 per cent shall have dividend pay-out ratio of not more than 30 per cent.
“The DMBs and the DHs that have capital adequacy ratios of at least three per cent above the minimum requirement, the CRR of ‘Low’ and the NPL ratio of more than five per cent but less than 10 per cent, shall have dividend pay-out ratio of not more than 75 per cent of profit after tax.”
The directive, apart from being explicit, is certainly timely. Aside underscoring the seriousness that the apex bank attaches to the issue of rising cases of bad loans, it comes as an emphatic signal that the corporate derelictions which allowed the problem to fester would no longer be condoned. After all, to say that the situation is bad is to put things mildly. At a time the CBN’s prescribed minimum NPL threshold is five per cent for banks, the level of NPL had long hit 15.18 per cent as of September 2017 – a leap of 50 percent from N1.6tn in December 2016 to N2.4tn.
The directive therefore comes across as a necessary dual-edged sword – one meant to sift the wheat from the chaff, while offering a lifeline for marginal performers to shore up their capital bases.
Understandably, there are those who would baulk at the idea of ‘punishing’ the hordes of investors for the poor credit decisions of the banks’ management. In other words, why go after the hapless investors while sparing the executives behind most of the poor credit decisions of the regulatory axe? While the question is no doubt legitimate, no less legitimate is whether the shareholders are themselves not complicit in their acquiescence to a number of the questionable decisions by the management of the institutions.
This leads to the question of whether the CBN can afford to do nothing. The situation, as it appears, comes basically to the simple choice – between the festering cannibal rage on the ailing entities on the one hand, and denial of current earnings on investments to guarantee the entities a chance to thrive on the other. Between the former and the later, it should not be difficult to see which of the alternatives the lesser evil is.
The Nation
