CASH HOLDINGS

The study examines the determinants of cash holdings of 12 deposit money banks in Nigeria for a period of 13 years (2013 to 2025). The panel data sourced from the Nigerian stock exchange fact book, Annual financial statement and cash flow reports of banks were used. The econometric tools analysis was employed to analyze five bank’s specific variables such as return on assets, asset tangibility, leverage, bank size and volume of deposits to assets. The empirical findings revealed that asset tangibility is negative and is an 'important factor in the determination of cash holding behaviour of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Return on assets (a proxy for bank profitability) does not have any significant relationship with cash holding; leverage has an insignificant positive impact on cash holdings; bank size has an insignificant negative relationship with cash holding; and volume of deposits to assets (VDA) has a weak negative impact on deposit money banks’ cash holding. The study recommends among others that, management should be cautious in setting up a cash holding friendly policy that can be effectively linked with performance. This will ensure that as bank increases its level of cash holding, it will in turn enhance the overall performance of the bank. Also, since asset tangibility has proven to be a major factor that determines bank’s cash holding behaviour of firm in Nigeria, it therefore follows that banks should hold more cash in order to increase tangible assets. Thus, appropriate policy that will ensure that as bank increases its cash holding capacity, its corresponding tangible assets would also be enhanced