Findings from the Gross Domestic Product released by the National Bureau of Statistics Q4 2021 report has shown that Banks and other financial institutions excluding insurance, contributed N2.3 trillion to the nation’s real GDP, in 2021.

This is  up by 10.5 per cent from 2.1 trillion in 2020. The contribution of banks and other financial institutions to the real GDP rose slightly by two basis points to 3.2 per cent from 3.0 per cent in 2020.

According to the NBS report, banks, financial institutions excluding insurance, in real terms, recorded year-on-year growth in three quarters in 2021, namely Q1, Q3, and Q4.

In Q1’21, the segment recorded 0.15 per cent, YoY, growth to N555.6 billion from N554.72 billion in Q1’2020. The segment however contracted by 4.54 per cent, YoY in Q2’21 to N545.8 billion from N571.7 billion in Q2’2020. This trend was however reversed with a 25.5 per cent, YoY, growth in Q3’21, to N530.8 billion from N422.9 billion in Q3’2020.

The upward trend persisted in Q4’21 as the subsector recorded 25.19 per cent growth to N686.4 billion, up from N548.3 billion in Q4’2020.

Meanwhile, the NBS report showed that the nation recorded GDP growth of 3.4 percent in 2020, representing the first annual growth since the pandemic induced recession of 2020 and the strongest growth in seven years since 2014.

The 3.4 per cent GDP growth recorded in 2021, up by 5.32 percentage points from the pandemic induced contraction of 1.9 per cent in 2020, exceeded the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, IMF projections of 2.5 per cent and 2.7 per cent of the country in 2021.