The Central Bank of Nigeria’ (CBN) yesterday gave three commercial banks until June 2016 to recapitalise after they failed to hit a minimum capital adequacy rate of 10 percent.

The development seen as one of the fallouts of the recent implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration led to the loss of over N1.7 trillion of public sector fund from banks’ vaults to a single Federation Account at the Central Bank.

Many also believe that the TSA policy may have left gaps in the accounts of most commercial banks to the extent that most of them are now battling to cover up to scale regulatory checks.

Though the apex bank did not name the banks for fears it may trigger a run on their current deposits, it pointed out they were from the group of 14 banks that have licenses to operate as regional and national lenders, with respective capital bases of 10 billion naira ($50 million) and N25 billion.

So far, a number of Nigerian banks have postponed moves to raise fresh funds, even as the CBN said it was monitoring the three banks’ recapitalisation plans, and that 10 others with international status met the 15 percent minimum capital rate for that category of bank at the end of June.

The recapitalisation schedule, contained in a report dated Oct. 30, was only released on Friday.

Nigerian lenders have been shoring up their balance sheets in preparation for adopting stricter international requirements that analysts say could erode capital ratios by between 100 and 400 basis points to near the regulatory minimum of 15 percent.

•Adapted from a Saturday Sun report. Photo shows CBN Headquarters.

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