DISCOs owe Sky Bank N5bn - MD

POWER distribution companies (DISCOs) are owing Skye Bank about N5 billion, its Group Managing Director, Mr. Timothy Oguntayo, told in Lagos on Thursday.

However, he said that the bank was aware that cash flow from the power sector was going to take some time, and that a deal had done with the DISCOs on how the credit facility can be serviced.

“Skye Bank’s total exposure to the power sector is about N5 billion and that exposure is not serviced from the distribution companies’ revenue because we know it is going to take some time before those DISCOs begin to generate robust cash flow to serve their loan facility,” the managing director said.

He said that the acquisition of Mainstreet Bank has made Skye Bank Nigeria’s fourth largest bank in Nigeria in terms of branches as it now has 469 outlets, 887 Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and 6,355 Point of Sales (POS) terminals.

He said that the combination of the two banks was expected to deliver significant operational synergies, resulting in resource optimisation and enhancement of shareholder value and creation of opportunities to deploy e-channels products and capabilities to clients of Mainstreet Bank.

The managing director said at the bank’s pre-AGM briefing Skye Bank is set to publish the names of all its corporate and individual bad debtors,

He said the institution had no choice but to publish the names of customers who were not servicing their debts so that it could escape Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sanctions.

The CBN and retail banks had at the end of the 322nd Bankers’ Committee Meeting in Abuja, agreed that names of all debtors must be published latest by August 1.

CBN Director of Banking Supervision, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, said there is about N13 trillion credits in the market out of which about N490 billion, equivalent to 3 percent, is nonperforming.

The CBN had at the 321st Bankers Committee Meeting held in Lagos directed all banks to publish the names of bad debtors from June.