Development Bank of Nigeria Plc, DBN, said it disbursed N100 billion to over 100, 000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, (MSMEs) in the country last year.
The Managing Director, Mr. Tony Okpanachi, who disclosed this in his address at the DBN’s virtual third Annual General Meeting in Abuja.
While giving a scorecard on the bank’s activities and contribution to the Nigerian economy, he said the bank working through its Participating Financial Institutions, PFIs, has facilitated increase in MSME revenue, as well as assets.
Okpanachi stated that DBN has focused on engendering gender equality in its loan distribution and empowered youths with 52 percent of the total loan disbursed to these segments in 2019.
“Through our 27 Participating Financial Institutions, over N100bn was disbursed last year, impacting cumulatively over 100,000 MSMEs. So far, 3,192 jobs have been created leading to an increase of 10 per cent in MSMEs revenue and 6.8 percent increase in value of their land assets.
“Also, 52 percent of loans disbursed in 2019 were to youths and women owned businesses. This is in our bid to promote economic empowerment and gender equality,” he said.
He further stated that DBN has also set up a Credit Guarantee Subsidiary, Impact Credit Guarantee Company Limited, with the aim of de-risking the MSME sector by sharing risks with the PFIs to encourage them to lend to this critical sector of the economy.
Okpanachi added that DBN also delivered capacity building programs for MSMEs across the six geopolitical zones of the Federation in the period under consideration. He assured shareholders that the bank was on the right trajectory and focused its strategy on driving sustainable economic growth.
The bank, he said, was expanding its distribution network to include other non-banking financial institutions and working on some concessions to PFIs, as well as, de-risking of SME lending through the subsidiary, ICGL to increase participation.
According to him, “the strategy will also cover delivery of technical assistance to PFIs and capacity building programs for MSMEs all geared towards encouraging uptake of the DBN funds by PFIs for on lending.”
Source: VON
