In a move aimed at enabling small and medium-scale entrepreneurs to sustain and grow their businesses, Primera Microfinance Bank has extended over N5 billion in financing to small and medium-scale enterprises so far in 2022.
The fully licensed and technology-driven finance institution that offers financial solutions to businesses and individuals intends to as well as empower entrepreneurs to launch new businesses to compete in the marketplace.
The Chief Executive Officer of Primera Microfinance Bank, Unwana Efiong Esang, said, “At Primera MFBank, we are solidly committed to building the capacity of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in this economy to ensure they thrive, create wealth for our people and add value to society.”
The Bank achieved this admirable feat by strategically focusing on key growth industries within the SME space to promote their commercial and economic growth, and by further committing to maintaining robust financing lines for entrepreneurs in the economy, enabling them to weather economic headwinds and overcome crucial financial challenges.
In recognizing the key role that gender diversity and financial inclusion for women play in driving sustainable economic growth, approximately 26% of these financing lines were made out to female entrepreneurs in the current financial year, double the 13% share recorded in 2021.
This is critical because, according to available data, over 99% of registered businesses in Nigeria are MSMEs and they contribute 46% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is in addition to providing over 87% of employment in our economy.
So, we are very deliberate in our focus to grow this very important dimension of our economy by leveraging one of our must-win objectives of significantly improving customer and stakeholder satisfaction.”
“Our bank, through our Primera Business proposition, is proud to be championing the cause of SMEs in our economy.
And in recognition of the fact that access to finance is a major challenge to SMEs, we have optimized our lending processes to make our financing lines more accessible and available in a time and cost-efficient manner to our highly valued SME clientele.
In addition to these, we have established partnerships that have significantly improved on credit application support, as well as the knowledge, expertise, and enabling infrastructure around SMEs through our periodically held and very well-attended Primera SME Clinics,” Esang further stated.
In addition, he said, “These clinics are focused on empowering SMEs and entrepreneurs with company incorporation support, financial and economic literacy, sales and marketing support, book-keeping knowledge, branding support, and legal advisory for their businesses.
“We have developed a very robust and all-encompassing ecosystem to incubate SMEs to achieve market and economic success.”
