Determinants of Deposit Money Banks' Lending Behaviour to Private Sector of the Economy in Nigeria (1986-2017)

The study examined those factors that determine the deposit money bank's lending behaviour to private sector of the economy in Nigeria using annual time series data spanning from 1986 to 2017. Secondary data were sourced majorly from CBN Statistical Bulletin (2017). In measuring the variables, determinants of deposit money bank lending behaviour to private sector were subjected to bank-specific factors, regulation factors, financial deepening and macroeconomic factors. The bank-specific factors were proxied by volume of deposit (VD) and lending rate (LDR), regulation factor was proxied by reserve requirement (RSR), financial deepening was proxied by the ratio of the money supply to GDP (M2G) while macroeconomic variables were proxied by inflation (INF). The estimation techniques used for the study were the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, pairwise Granger causality test and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL). It was found that the variables in the series were integrated of difference order l(0) and l(1) and there was a significant relationship between bank lending behaviours and the identified determinants. In addition, it was revealed that the variables move in the long run, however, among the variables of interest, the volume of deposit and M2G determines bank lending behaviour in the short and long run while RSR, INF and LDR retard lending to private sector. The study also found that causality runs from the volume of deposits to private sector credit. Hence, the study concluded that there is a significant relationship between bank lending behaviour private sector and its determinants. It was recommended that bank lending rate should be brought down or flexible to meet up the categories of borrowers since there is common knowledge that high-interest rate discourages borrowers and influences banks to select bad loan offer which may affect the bank returns in the long run. Secondly, the reserve requirement dictated by CBN on deposit money banks should be reduced so as to enable banks to be more liquid for the private sector to access funds for their productive purposes and lastly, inflation should be made below 2 digits, as inflation above a digit may be unfriendly to economy activities thereby affecting the private-sector output which is germane to the economic growth.