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•Women get lion share
The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) at the weekend, disclosed that it has in the last seven years, disbursed N700 billion to Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) in the country.
The Managing Director of DBN, Mr Tony Okpanachi disclosed this at the celebration of International Women Day held at Wuye Ultra Modern Market, Abuja.
The theme of this year’s celebration is:”Celebrating the Amazons in the MarketPlace- Inspire Inclusion”.
Mr Okpanachi who represented the bank’s Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Services, Mrs Ijeoma Ozulumba at the occasion, noted about 60 Percent of the total disbursement went to women.
He said reports from Participation Financial Institutions(PFIs) indicate that Non-Performing loans(NPLs) from disbursement to women was the lowest in the industry.
“So far from the intervention that we have seen, our banks have reported to us that our portfolio has the lowest non performing loans. There is good recovery in the Loans and also women portfolio is even lower in terms of default”,
“In the number of end borrowers for our loans 50 percent have been women” she said.
The MD explained that the development institution has provided support for the Small and medium enterprises beyond finances with the sole aim of boosting economic growth”.
Okpanachi noted that specific training is also given to women on how they can manage their business and keep their books, how they can manage their operations, access to market access to networks as well.
“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 that women have access to finance, have access to knowledge, to grow their business and to develop their businesses. So this is very important,” he added.
