ABSTRACT

This study seeks to assess Effects of Covid - 19 on the Banking Sector of Sierra Leone for the period of 2019 at the Sierra Leone commercial Bank. In a bid to address the objectives of the study, the secondary data collected were analysed using Descriptive statistics, Correlation analysis and the results from interviews to test the hypothesis of the study. The study discovered that banks are indeed catching Corona, although the effect has not become as obvious from banks’ balance sheets given the easing of regulatory requirements on loan classification and provisioning. The study therefore recommends that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has already brought major economic disruptions globally and the economic consequences are now having unprecedented effects on bank’s performance. If this situation persists, solvency risk of corporates and households would rise substantially with detrimental effects on bank NPLs. Empirical evidence suggests that policies adopted by governments and central banks have helped ease banks’ challenges amid the COVID-19 crisis and mitigate the increase in bank NPLs in both advanced and emerging market economies. Nevertheless, high heterogeneous projected NPL ratios across countries reflect that some economies are expected to be more negatively impacted than others.