The Bank of Industry (BoI) has disclosed that it disbursed loans worth over N270 billion to borrowers during the 2018 financial year.
This information was revealed over the weekend by the bank’s Executive Director in charge of Large Enterprises, Mr. Simon Aranonu. He also disclosed that the bank generated a total profit of N36 billion, a figure that is about N14 billion higher than the amount that was realised in the proceeding year.
“The Bank of industry, has in the last 18 months grown its balance sheet to N1.1 trillion as at December, 2018 from N700 billion in 2017.”
Meanwhile, the Director also commented on the modes of operation deployed by BoI to resolve the repayment of loans, stressing that a legal framework has been put in place to address various cases of loan default.
“We are more patient with our borrowers. However, given that we are a development bank when a customer (banks) genuinely has borrowers, we support them in diverse ways. We will restructure such loans and grant them extensions. Generally, our loan process is very rigorous and our risk management process is extremely robust. This ensures our loan default is extremely low.”
The BoI chief said that the Bank has assisted lot of firms, over the years to succeed, while adding that over 90% of Nigeria’s manufacturers are among the major recipients.
“Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has a representative on board of BoI. Beyond the large enterprises, we finance small scale manufacturers all over the nation. We serve them from our 22 branches across the nation.”
Soft loans to the service industry: He further spoke about soft loans disbursement to the service industry, in which the BoI heavily funded the creative industry through financing content development. He noted that the Bank has financed over 70% of movie theatres in Nigeria, adding that many hospitals and diagnostic centres have also been funded by the bank.
Currently, the ongoing construction of the biggest cancer treatment center, the solar energy development across the federation and setting up a special single interest rate fund for developers are being funded by the bank.
The baseline: Access to credit by the businesses within the real sectors of the economy is a step in supporting them to thrive. However, a legal framework should always be in place to help treat cases of non-repayment of loans; just like the BoI has done.
