The Central Bank of Nigeria has fined Stanbic IBTC, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and other banks N216.11bn for defaulting on its 27.5 per cent Cash Reserves Ratio.
CRR is the amount of funds that banks have to maintain with the CBN at all times. It is a law that helps to decrease the likelihood that banks go insolvent
The Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN had raised the CRR by 500 basis points to 27.5 per cent from 22.5 per cent.
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The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this while reading the communique at the end of the first MPC meeting this year.
Financial Street gathered that banks debited are Citibank, N11bn; Standard Chartered Bank, N10bn; Stanbic IBTC, N30bn; Coronation Merchant Bank, N2bn; FBN Merchant Bank, N2.5bn; FSDH, N251.2m; and Globus Bank, N1bn.
Others are Keystone Bank Limited, N1.4bn; Nova Merchant Bank Ltd, N6bn; Providus Bank, N1.2bn; Rand Merchant Bank, N335.5m; SunTrust Bank, N683.9m; Titan Trust Bank, N500m, among others.
The sanction was imposed ahead of the sales of dollars by the CBN on the domestic foreign exchange market, where commercial lenders bid on behalf of their customers.
Six of the banks debited accounted for 63.52 per cent of the total amount withdrawn from the banking system on Friday.
According to Emefiele, the decision of the MPC to raise the CRR was informed by recent inflationary pressure on the economy.
Also, the CBN boss stated that the decision to hold other rates was informed by the conviction of the committee that there is a need to observe the response of the economy to several policies introduced by the CBN.
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