Tony Okpanachi, the Managing Director (MD), Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), has disclosed that the bank will disburse N70 billion loans to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in 2019.
The DBN boss said the bank’s disbursement target for the year 2019 is N70 billion, which he stressed would help deepen the bank’s penetration in the MSMEs sector of the economy.
According to Opanachi, the bank is not sector specific in its funding activities.
“We are not sector-specific and as long as you have the potential to create employment, you have the potential to empower and make development impact, DBN will fund you.” Opanachi added.
DBN’s scorecard
In its first year of operations, DBN exceeded its projected loan performance by 4.53 per cent. The bank, which set a target of N30 billion in 2018, disbursed N31.36bn to 35,000 MSMEs.
Opanachi stated that the bank’s first two participating financial institutions, which were micro-finance banks, were the first beneficiaries, adding that the bank currently had 29 PFIs, which included commercial banks at various stages of engagement.
He said, “Our total disbursement-to-date stands at N31.364bn, thus exceeding our year-end projection of N30bn. The total number of end borrowers stands at 35,000, which also exceeded our year-end target of 20,000 MSMEs.
“Women accounted for 73 per cent of the end-borrowers of the DBN loans and received 27 per cent of the total amounts disbursed.
Nairametrics had reported that the financial institution enlisted over 35,000 MSMEs within its first full year of operation. Okpanachi said the figure translated to a 75 per cent increase over the 20,000 MSMEs projection earlier announced for the year.
About DBN
The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) was conceived by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in collaboration with global development partners to address the major financing challenges facing Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria.
DBN’s objective is to alleviate financing constraints faced by MSMEs and small Corporates in Nigeria through the provision of financing and partial credit guarantees to eligible financial intermediaries on a market-conforming and fully financially sustainable basis.
DBN was established to provide structured and sustainable financing to small businesses.
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