CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1             Background of the Study Credit management in our banking sector today has taken a different dimension from what it used to be. The banking industry has adopted a lot of strategies in checking credit management in order to stay in business. Though the banking industry in Nigeria has lost large amount of money as a result of the turning source of credit exposure and taken interest rate position. Nigerian banks are being required in the market because of their competence to provide transaction efficiency, market knowledge and funding capability. To perform these roles, the banks act as the most important participants in their transaction process of which they use their own balance sheet to make it easier and making sure that their associated risk is absorbed. Credit extension is essential function of banks and the bank management strives to satisfy the legitimate credit needs of the community it tends to serve. This credit advances by banks as a debtor to the depositor requires exercising prudence in handling the funds of depositors. The Central Bank of Nigeria established a credit act in 1990 which empowered banks to render returns to the credit risk management system in respect to its entire customers with aggregate outstanding debit balance of one million naira and above (Ijaiya G.T and Abdulraheem A 2012). This made Nigerian banks to universally embark on upgrading their control system and risk management because this coincidental activity is recognized as the industry physiological weakness to financial risk. The researcher, a New yolk-based, said that 40% of Nigerian banks that made up exchange rate value in west Africa, has reduced the operating lending as a result of bad debts which hit more than $10 billion in 2009 and this has led to a tied-up questioning asset that is holding almost half of Nigerian banks. The central bank of Nigeria fired eight chief executive officers and set aside $ 4.1 billion in order to bail out almost 10 of the country’s lenders. The reform which was introduced by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2010 has made Nigerian banks resume lending supporting assets management companies and set up the requirement which will allow Nigerian banks make full provision for bad debts that will boost the market. Loans are the most important asset held by banks; but loan has its own cost and risk. In other words, the granting of credit, though beneficial for business as a whole, is not without cost, either to the supplier or to the buyer, or to both. It follows therefore that the process of granting credit to customers, and the tasks of risk assessment and risk analysis, amount to no more than weighing the benefits of granting credit against the cost to the supplier of doing so. Furthermore, that cost element is not restricted to non-payment, or bad debt losses, but applies to cost of the credit period itself and the cost incurred in late payment. Therefore, although, lending which is a primary function of commercial banks, and the single most important source of  gross  income  for  commercial  banks as well as contributes to the larger part of a bank