Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on corporate performance of banking sector in Nigeria. Specifically, this study aims to: (i) determine the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on corporate effectiveness on banking sector and (ii) examine the impact of COVID-19 social distancing on corporate efficiency on banking sector. Population of the study consists of 16 deposit money banks in Enugu State. Four banks (Access Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria, Eco Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc) were selected as sample banks. The sample size of 364 respondents was drawn from population of the study. Structured questionnaire was employed to collect data and were distributed by hand. Research questions were answered using frequency, mean and standard deviation. The hypotheses stated were tested using single regression. Empirical results of the study show that COVID-19 lockdown has negative and significant impact on corporate effectiveness of banking sector since COVID-19 lockdown results to revenue losses in banking organizations thereby reduces corporate effectiveness (t – statistics (47.005) > critical values (0.000), the finding of the study revealed that COVID-19 social distancing has negative and significant impact on corporate efficiency in banking sector, since COVID-19 social distancing reduces number of banking services rendered per day thereby decline corporate efficiency (t – statistics (43.686) > critical values (0.000. The study concluded that COVID-19 lockdown has negatively significant impact on corporate effectiveness on banking sector in Nigeria. The study recommends that the management of banking sector should introduce electronic banking during the lockdown to avoid total out consumers’ services from banks.