AGRICULTURAL FINANCING AND PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS: A FOCUS ON THE ROLE OF NIGERIAN COMMERCIAL BANKS

The paper examined the major forms of agriculture financing in Nigeria. Specifically, it identified these forms as treasury bills, treasury certificates, certificates of deposits, bankers’ unit funds, commercial papers and eligible development stocks. The discussions in this paper relied on portfolio theories which were developed over the years and have helped business scientists in analyzing the financial transactions of commercial banks. A portfolio from the investment point of view as explained in this paper is a composite set of ownership rights to financial assets in which the investor wishes to invest his funds. The implication here is that portfolio as securities held by or on behalf of an investor, includes among others, the holding of bills of exchange by banks or discount houses. The portfolio management service is therefore the management by a bank or financial institution of the quoted securities of a customer. This have been exhaustively examined under the stream of the safe keeping of securities, dealing with rights issues, the collection of dividends and the preparation of variations.