Barbara Bako, Abuja.
The Managing Director, Development Bank of Nigeria, Tony Okpanachi said the institution is working in collaboration with LAPO Microfinance Bank to give low interest loans to 10,000 businesses in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector.
Okpanachi said in a statement that the loan is part of measures put together to address the financing challenges facing MSMEs in Nigeria noting that the bank is committed to making funds available to MSMEs at low interest rate.
He noted that access to finance to MSMEs was vital to increasing their contributions to Gross Domestic Product as he recalled that LAPO MFB was among the first three banks that DBN commenced its on-lending activities with in October last year.
Okpanachi said the release of the fund is in line with the decision of the bank to fulfil its three mandates of lending to MSMEs, provision of partial guarantees to financial institutions and capacity building. He said, “This is a milestone achievement and I am particularly happy that we are getting a lot of traction on our lending activities with LAPO.
“The collaboration is encouraging because they were among the first three Microfinance Banks we commenced our initial pilot lending with in November 2017. “I must commend the management team for keying into our business model and I strongly believe we can work together to alleviate the financial constraints faced by MSMEs.
” The Managing Director, LAPO MFB, Mr Godwin Ehigiamusoe said the disbursement of the loan would catalyse activities of entrepreneurs in that segment of the economy He said, “We strongly believe in the capacity and potentials of the MSMEs in alleviating poverty and creating jobs for our growing population.
“We are happy with the partnership and we will continue to work with DBN to ensure that collectively, we are able provide the much-needed funding that the MSMEs require to flourish.”
Comments are closed.