Employees in the nation’s industry reduced by 8.3 per cent last year compared to the number of banking staff in December 2019, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Selected Banking Sector Report said.
It added that in the fourth quarter, the number of banking staff dropped by 8,584 to 95,026 as at December 31, 2020 compared to 103,610 which was in the employ of banks in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic had impacted the operations of banks with many branches closed to reduce contact and many of the affected staff had been contract staff. In the heat of the pandemic, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had directed that banks not lay off any worker without its approval.
The data released by the NBS showed that most of the staff relieved of their duties last year were contract staff as the number of executive staff increased significantly.
A total of 5,552 contract staff had been laid off in the course of the year reducing the number by 12.2 per cent from 45,350 to 39,798 while the number of junior staff had declined by 5.78 per cent or 2,306 from 39,896 to 37,590 at the end of December last year
A total volume of 3.46 billion transactions valued at N356.47tn were recorded in the fourth quarter of 2020 as data on electronic payment channels in the Nigeria banking sector.
Online transfers dominated the volume of transactions recorded, it stated.
The NBS stated that 2.23 billion volume of online transfer transactions valued at N120.27tn were recorded in Q4 2020.
In terms of credit to the private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the bank stood at N20.37tn as of Q4 2020.
Oil and gas and manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.93tn and N3.19tn to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review.
