Mr Tony Okpanachi, the managing director of Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), has stated that women have enjoyed over 60 percent of its N700 billion disbursement to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the last seven years.
Okpanachi made the disclosure during this year’s International Women Day held at Wuye Ultra-Modern Market in Abuja, with the theme “Celebrating the Amazons in the Market Place – Inspire Inclusion”.
He also said: “Despite enjoying this lion share of disbursed funds, statistics from the Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) indicate that Non-Performing loans (NPLs) from disbursement to women remains the lowest within the industry”.
Okpanachi, represented at the occasion by Mrs Ijeoma Ozulumba, the executive director, Finance and Corporate Services at DBN, applauded Nigerian women as great entrepreneurs and faithful customers in loans’ repayment within the SMEs sector.
According to the DBN’s Chief Executive;
“So far from the intervention that we’ve seen, our banks have reported to us that our portfolio has the lowest Non Performing Loans (NPLs). There’s good recovery in the Loans and also women portfolio is even lower in terms of default”.
He said the bank has so far disbursed over 700 billion Naira as loans to entrepreneurs with about 137 billion Naira to women and women owned businesses, adding; “In the number of end borrowers for our loans, 50 percent have been women”
Additionally, the development institution has provided support for the SMEs “beyond finances with the sole aim of boosting economic growth”, Okpanachi said, while noting that women have also enjoyed specific trainings on how they can manage their business and keep their books; how they can manage their operations; as well as access to market networks
He said beyond funding, DBN does a lot of training, especially location specific training, stressing that last year, the bank was in the North East and Northwest to ensure women have access to finance; and access to knowledge to grow and develop their businesses.
The DBN boss described the various measures taken by the institution towards empowering Nigerian women as “very important” in the efforts to drive development and growth in the nation’s SMEs sector.
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