Nigeria's First Bank says overhauling loan book

Nigeria's biggest lender First Bank said it overhauling its credit risk management to ensure that its loan books are properly structured to avert further building up of Non-Performing Loan (NPL), its CEO said on Tuesday.
"The entire credit system is being overhaul, we are putting in place right process, we have recruited an experienced chief risk officer to help restructure the credit process while deploying technology to ensure that our risk management is very robust," Adesola Adeduntan said.
Adeduntan said it has centralised approving authority for loans to ensure that the process is more transparent, while quality of lending remain sustainable.
He said the lenders would focus more on the recovery of its huge outstanding loan and significantly bring down its cost to income ratio to improve on its profitability.
The bank had announced 119 billion naira ($420.87 million) loan loss provision last year and said it working hard to ensure the recovery of significant portion on the NPL.
Adeduntan, who spoke on the sideline of a press briefing in Lagos noted that loan growth this year will largely depend on the performance of the economy.
"We have our loan growth plan, but that plan is hinged on the performance of the economy. We would only transact when we have quality borrower as a counterparty. We will not lend for the sake of lending, because when you do that you are building up another round of NPL," Adeduntan said.
The commercial lender, a unit of FBN Holdings said it plans to double its customer base from around 10 million, while deploying technology to boost the use of digital platform by its customers to transact business.