The Development Bank of Nigeria, DBN says its portfolio records less default in loan repayment than others in the banking sector.
The Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Services, Mrs. Ijeoma Ozulumba, disclosed this at the International Woman Day event with the theme: Celebrating Amazons in the Market place in Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital.
“So we work through banks, we don’t lend directly to customers. We lend to what we call our participating financial institutions and these financial institutions then make these funds available to women. So far from the intervention that we’ve seen, our banks have reported to us that our portfolio has the lowest non performing loans, there’s good recovery in the Loans and also women portfolio is even lower in terms of default.”
Mrs. Ozulumba said the bank has disbursed over 700billion naira as loans to entrepreneurs with about 137 billion naira to women and women owned businesses.
“In the number of end borrowers for our loans 50 percent have been women”
She explained that the development institution has provided support for the Small and medium enterprises beyond finances with the sole aim of boosting economic growth.
“We give specific training on how they can manage their business. How they can keep their books, how they can manage your operations, access to market access to networks as well. So beyond funding, we do a lot of training.
“We also do a lot of location specific training. Last year we were in the North East and Northwest went round six states in northern Nigeria 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.
“Every year we do a nationwide training program as well. Where we go to Lagos, Port-harcourt and Abuja here, we also provide of training and making sure that they have the knowledge. We also provide certain grants to women specifically in small amounts to help them scale up their business and to help them grow and be able to do better and to manage their business more effectively.”
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