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From Uche Usim, Abuja
Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) Plc at the weekend disclosed that it has so far disbursed over N400 billion loans to over 180,000 Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) since it started operations in 2017.
The bank, which stated this at the maiden edition of its Techpreneur Summit in Lagos, noted that a good portion of the loans were to tech-based start-ups and other sectors of the economy.
Executive Director, Finance/Corporate Services of the bank, Mrs. Ijeoma Ozulumba, in her remarks at the Summit themed: ‘Starting Local, Scaling Global’, noted that in 2020, DBN disbursed N190 billion, and 7,000 of those MSMEs were accessing funding for the first time.
“This shows how important this event is to us, and the commitment of the Bank to alleviating the financing constraints faced by MSMEs.
“Our three-fold mandate is lending, providing partial credit guarantee, and capacity building. The capacity building aspect is why we are having this summit today,” , she explained.
Ozulumba addded that the theme was carefully chosen to drive conversation in the technology sector and accelerate its impact on the social-economic development of Nigeria, by creating jobs, improving the lives of people, and scaling up Nigeria’s tech presence globally.
“The initiative will avail tech-based businesses and techie minds the platform to network and interact with investors as well as DBN Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) that can help with finance to actualize or scale up their business.
“Techpreneur Summit underscores the ambition of the bank since it commenced operations in 2017 in creating a favorable space in the ecosystem for tech. The future is hinged on technology, so apart from the global trend, locally we continue to see that technology is now about 18 per cent of GDP. ICT is the fastest-growing sector of the economy. Apart from that, technology and digital transformation is not just a megatrend, it underpins all the other megatrends in finance, engineering, and climate action which is topical right now’’ she added.
In his keynoteote address, serial the Managing Director and Co-founder, Trans-Sahara Investment Corporation, Kyari Bukar tasked Nigerian techie minds and techpreneurs on developing knowledge-based local solutions that have a universal appeal and can put Nigerian on the global technology table.
