Succour for chronic debtors as Access Bank to write off bad loans

By Timothy Oyomarea

Succour is coming the way of chronic debtors, particularly those inherited from Diamond Bank Plc as the management of Access Bank Plc has stated that all intractable bad loans are to be written off before the next financial period in line with the bank’s accounting policy.

This indication was given by the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of the bank, Mr. Herbert Wigwe at the bank’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held recently in Lagos.

He, however, added that this will be after all practical recovery efforts have been exhausted, including ensuring that the cost of chasing such recovery is within reasonable limit.

The bank which was recently criticized by shareholders at the AGM for the poor dividend of 50k per share declared for the 2018 financial year is being threatened by the large volume of bad loans inherited from Diamond Bank Plc.

Mediaissuesng.com gathered that most of the bad loans were inherited from Diamond Bank which was recently acquired by Access Bank.

Prior to the acquisition, Diamond Bank Plc was entangled in severe capital deficit, due to high financial exposure worsened by non-performing loans due to inability of the bank to recover credit from debtors, mainly high net worth individuals and corporate organisations, forcing the bank to struggle to stay afloat.

Access Bank is currently faced with decline in shareholders’ funds.