ABSTRACT

This project was undertaken to investigate, evaluate and appraise the

impact of commercial bank lending policy on bank portfolio

management using Oceanic bank international plc as a case study.

This study was conducted using data collected through the secondary

source. The major instruments of analysis were secondary data

collected from Oceanic bank international plc. Other data used in the

work include those from the central bank of Nigeria annual reports

and statistical bulletin, data gotten from the uni\iersity library, Abia

state library and the Abia state university Uturu research library. The

major analytical tool applied in the study is the multiple regression

analysis and the student t-test.

In the structural analysis, it was discovered that every 5% increase in

loans and advances led to 1.6% increase in profit, while to every 5%

increase in investment led to 4.1% increase in profit This is caused

mostly by constraints imposed by government and regulatory

authorities on commercial banks on the one hand, and the volatile

nature of the operating environment, on the other hand.

As a result of the findings of this study, Commercial banks should

adopt the appropriate lending and investment policies in order to

attain an efficient portfolio bearing in mind the three distinctive factors

namely: liquidity, risk and the returns.

Finally in administering its fiscal and monetary measures, the

monetary authorities should take the interest of commercial banks

into a huge consideration. Every monetary policy should be evaluated

in terms of its over-all effect on the economic, technological, political

and sociological and cultural environment to ensure an equal

treatment of all sectors of the economy bearing in mind their inter-

dependence.