Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has unveiled a N5 billion loan portfolio with the target to assist over 10, 000 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.
Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sterling Bank, the Director General of SMEDAN, Charles Odii said “Most small businesses will tell you that access to finance is their biggest problem.
“Access to finance comes in different compartments but what we want to do as an Agency is to first of all, make this access to finance easier because we understand that finance is very scarce and expensive in this part of the world,
so we want to make sure that we solve that problem.
He explained, “We will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), this is basically to create a loan portfolio of N5 billion at a single-digit interest rate for small businesses across different sectors.
“With this loan portfolio, we can make available access to finance for close to 10,000 small businesses. we thank the management and staff of Sterling Bank for going with us on this journey.
“We will work with the Bank to monitor the progress of the fund and how the businesses are faring. We want to see the progression of these businesses” he stated.
On his part, the Managing Director, Sterling Bank, Abubakar Suleiman said
“It’s an honour sitting with you to find private sector solutions to problems that are urgent and have the capacity to help the society.
“The partnership that we are contemplating is one that ultimately provides access to finance for businesses.
“Our job is to guide them through the journey of becoming the kind of institution that can attract finance. So, as much as being able to give them low-interest rate finances to a significant part, the real gain is that if they pass through this process successfully, they can access finance anywhere,” Abubakar stated.
The MD noted that “we are going to deliver this through technological platform because it has to be easy, it is not just about the interest rate but being able to access this funding without jumping through hooks from place to place.
“So we have developed a platform called ‘Banker’ that is designed entirely to focus on small businesses, the platform allows you to access this financing, helps you to organise your business, keep your records and helps you to pay back when it’s time to pay back.
“In order words, any business that passes through this process, even though they fail to access or meet the standard to access the fund, will leave better off because they will understand why they were not able to access the funding and they can go back, make changes to their business practices and come back and access funding,” he stated.
No collateral would be required in accessing the loan and a window of two years would be given for repayments.
. TheWitness
