Interest rates on intervention loans such as COVID-19 loans by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been reverted to 9 percent.
This applies to all intervention loan requests granted before July 20,2022 and will take effect from September 1, 2022.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the apex bank in March 2020, slashed interest on all its intervention loans to 5 per cent, as part of government’s palliative measures.
The apex bank extended the repayment period at the end of its expiration in March 2021 to March 2022 and in March, 2022, issued another circular to “extend the five per cent per annum interest rate on all CBN intervention facilities for one year. This takes effect retrospectively from the 28th of February 2022.”
But in a circular to all banks and Other Financial Institutions titled, ‘Adjustment of interest rate on all Central Bank of Nigeria interventions’, signed by the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department, Chibuzo Efobi, the banking regulator said “Further to our circular dated March 15, 2022 (Ref: FPR/DIR/PUB/CIR/001/040) extending the period of interest reduction to all intervention facilities from nine per cent to five per cent per annum (as part of measures to mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the Nigerian economy), the Central Bank of Nigeria hereby reverts the interest rate on all its intervention facilities to nine per cent per annum.
“The reversed rates shall be implemented as follows: All intervention facilities granted effective July 20, 2022 shall be at a nine per cent per annum;
“All existing intervention facilities granted prior to July 2022 shall be at nine per cent per annum effective from September 1, 2022.”
