The Asset Management Corporation of
Nigeria (AMCON) on Monday asked loan defaulters to immediately square
their accounts or it would publish their names in line with a directive
by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
CBN had, in April, directed lenders to
give bad debtors three months to square their accounts, otherwise they
would be named in the media and barred from taking part in Nigerian
currency and government debt markets.
AMCON warned bad debtors on Monday that
if loans remained unpaid, it will take steps to recover the debts
including by legal means. It advised debtors not to assume it will
forgive their indebtedness.
It also asked bad debtors to present restructuring plans, it said in a statement.
AMCON was set up in 2010 to absorb
non-performing loans in exchange for government bonds, after the central
bank injected $4 billion to rescue nine lenders from collapse six years
ago.
CBN has since set an upper limit of 5 percent for non-performing loan ratio for the industry.
Before the 2009 bailout non-performing loans ratio stood in double digits.
Top Nigerian commercial lenders
including Stanbic IBTC , Diamond Bank, First Bank and Skye Bank, have
all given notices to bad debtors to pay up.
The bad bank this year said it had
recovered 57 percent of bad debts, estimated around 1.8 trillion naira
from over 12,000 debtors of commercial lenders in Africa’s top economy.
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