Driving private sector credit in Nigeria: The role of growth finance

Abstract

There is some level of uncertainty as to whether private sector credit interacts with finance sources for growth to significantly influence channeling funds for investible purposes in Nigeria, given the nation’s unique characteristics. This study examines the role of various sources of growth finance on private sector credit in Nigeria. For this purpose, the study utilizes secondary data (1980–2018) sourced from CBN statistical annual reports. The study further employs the ARDL-Bounds Co-integration test to test out the hypothesis after stationarity testing. The study finds that stock market capitalization had a positive and significant influence on private sector credit compared to remittance inflows and gross domestic savings in the long run among the sources of growth finance indicators. Furthermore, remittance inflows reported a positive but statistically insignificant relationship, while gross domestic savings had a negative and insignificant coefficient. The study concludes that only stock market development inflow transmits to the private sector’s credit at 10 percent among the various growth finance sources.