First Bank said it is targeting a 10 to 15 percent growth in its loan book going forward.

Bisi Onasanya, group managing director and chief executive officer of the bank, who disclosed this also said the bank has the largest loan book in the Nigerian banking sector.

“We have a loan book of N1.5 trillion which is at least almost more than one and half times that of the next bank to us”, he said.

Onasanya, who spoke at the Nigeria Banking and Capital Market Conference in Lagos, said over N460 billion from FBN is deposited at the CBN as Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR).

He was concerned that only about 50 percent of total banking sector deposits are available for lending with about 55 percent deposited at the central bank of Nigeria as CRR.

According to him, there are policies in the country that make it difficult for businesses to grow. “From my computation, between 55 and 60 percent of bank deposits are not available for lending to the public because 75 percent of public sector funds are held as CRR, 15 percent of total deposits are held as CRR.”

BusinessDay