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By Faheem Lawal
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has committed a $75 million finance facility to the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) to widen access to finance for Nigerian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including eligible businesses in the creative economy.
The facility was announced during the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) WKND 2026 in Lagos. The Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, Afreximbank, Kanayo Awani, and the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of DBN, Dr Tony Okpanachi, led the ceremonial signing for their institutions.
DBN will route the loan through its Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) to fund eligible small businesses. The facility will support working capital, asset acquisition, pre-export and post-export financing, and supply chain activities. Businesses in fashion, film, music, design and the wider creative industries are among the intended beneficiaries.
Under Afreximbank’s Export SME Development programme, the financing will come with capacity-building and export-readiness support to help beneficiary firms become export-ready and reach regional and international markets.
Afreximbank and DBN will also jointly develop a capacity-building programme to strengthen the PFIs’ ability to support export-oriented SMEs. In addition, Afreximbank will give the businesses access to its trade platforms, including MANSA, TRADAR, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and ATEX. It will also support market access through the Africa Buyer Programme, the Afreximbank Trade and Development Centre (ATDC) and the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF).
Awani said the partnership went beyond providing capital.
“We are taking an integrated approach that combines finance with capacity building, export-readiness support and access to markets,” she said. According to her, the aim is to help Nigerian SMEs move from promising local businesses to sustainable exporters, while working with participating financial institutions to improve how they understand, finance and support SMEs.
She added that, for creative enterprises, the arrangement advanced CANEX’s ambition to turn African talent and ideas into sustainable businesses that could compete internationally.
Okpanachi said the partnership was another important step in DBN’s commitment to expanding access to finance for Nigerian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
He said the $75 million would provide much-needed financing through the bank’s PFIs and create opportunities for businesses, particularly those in creative and export-oriented sectors, to strengthen their productive capacity and access new markets.
Okpanachi also said the capacity-building and market-access parts of the deal were particularly important to DBN. By strengthening financial institutions’ ability to support export-ready businesses and connecting Nigerian enterprises to wider markets, he said, MSMEs would be helped to move from local businesses to competitive participants in regional and global value chains.
The partnership combines DBN’s wholesale lending network with Afreximbank’s trade finance expertise, capacity building and market access support.
