By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA
The National Collateral Registry (NCR), a unit of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has so far registered a total number of 24,318 women on its portal with a combined registered value of financial statements standing at N45,183,001,039.92.
The Registrar, Alhaji Mohammed Mainasara disclosed this in Abuja while addressing Finance Correspondents on the activities of the NCR.
He said other assets registered on NCR portal as at 20th March, 2019,include 17,657 documents of title/negotiable instruments; 100 boats;13 intellectual properties; two minerals (undisclosed); 417 plants and machinery; 218 securities; 13,425 motor vehicles; 1,582 farm products; 1,166 deposit accounts; 10,579 consumer/household goods among others.
According to him, the need for collateral registry has become necessary because of the N7.4 trillion financing gap plaguing MSMEs. He disclosed that N10.1 trillion capital is required by MSMEs but only N2.7 trillion has been raised so far.
This, according to the Registrar comprises “the total capital base/seed fund of DBN, BoI, BoA, NMBM, NEXIM, NIRSAL, Agriculture Credit Guaranteed Scheme. (ACGS), Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS), Re-discounting and Refinancing Facility (RRF), DMBs and MFBs.”
Other items registered are 17,657 documents of title/negotiable instruments; 100 boats;13 intellectual properties; two minerals (undisclosed); 417 plants and machinery; 218 securities; 13,425 motor vehicles; 1,582 farm products; 1,166 deposit accounts; 10,579 consumer/household goods among others.
Alhaji Mainasara also revealed that the number of registered financial institutions on the NCR portal has grown to 630 as at 20th March, 2019. According to him, 21 deposit money banks (DMBs); 552 Microfinance banks; four Merchant banks; four Development Finance Institutions (DFIs); 34 finance companies; one non-interest bank and 14 non-bank financial institutions have all been registered on the portal.
As at 20th March, 2019, Mainasara stated that 165,456 debtors have been registered by the Registry comprising 157,077 individuals; 735 large businesses; 2,279 medium businesses; 3,457 micro businesses and 1,908 small businesses all with a financing value of N1.26 trillion.
Two of the registered Development Finance Institutions he said have the largest number of borrowers registered on the NCR portal with 114,894 borrowers on their list with financing statement of N54, 131,619,397.13. 21,144 debtors or borrowers as they are referred to are owing six non-bank financial institutions N84, 651,140,385.
A collateral registry is a financial infrastructure for Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) lending, warehousing “a notice board registry for collaterals with a publicly available database of security interest in moveable assets registered for the purpose of being used as collateral to obtain facilities from financial institutions.
A collateral registry allows borrowers to provide their creditworthiness and lenders to assess their priority interest in potential claims against particular collateral. A collateral registry is expected to improve both access to finance and induce prompt repayment by providing a win-win for the borrower and lender simultaneously.
However, Alhaji Mainasara lamented that the NCR is faced with the twin challenges of “lack of funds to implement nationwide awareness campaign strategy on NCR and low usage of the NCR portal as a result of reluctance of financial institutions to appreciate the benefits of moveable assets-base.
The CBN in collaboration with the World Bank established the NCR by an Act of Parliament in 2017, “to improve access to finance particularly for MSMEs and ultimately reduce the risks associated with MSME lending”.
