Money deposit banks’ ability to mitigate credit risks has been a contemporary and controversial debate in literature, in contributing and extending the frontiers, this study examined the effect of credit risk on financial performance of money deposit banks in Nigeria. The study adopted an expo facto research design, descriptive and using inferential statistics to analyse the data. The population consisted of all the 19 money deposits banks (MDB) listed on the Nigeria stock exchange as at 31st December, 2018. A sample of 13 MDB were chosen on purpose, based mainly on availability of complete data within the study period under consideration. The study covered 169 firm-year observations for the period of 2006-2018. The study extracted secondary data from the financial statements of the banks explored for the study. The study identified three variables of financial performance (dependent variable) surrogated with return on capital employed (ROCE), the independent variable of credit risk proxied with non-performing loans, capital adequacy ratio, loan loss provisions loan to deposit ratio and the control variables of bank Size. The study found that credit management had a positive significant effect on financial performance of the MDB.(Ad R2=0.028,F(4,4170) =2.26;P-value <0.05)When the control variable of bank size (BSZ), stronger effect was exhibited, the study found that credit risk with bank size had a stronger significant effect on financial performance of MDB in Nigeria(Ad.R2=0.4311,F(4,4170)=321.95;p-value<0.05). The study concluded that credit management influences the financial performance of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria. The study recommended that management of the MBD should design and maintain a robust credit management strategy and framework as well as stringent credit policy that would decrease non-performing loan and default level; and improve their performance level in Nigeria.
Keywords: Credit risk, Financial Performance, capital employed, dividend, money deposit banks, nonperforming loans
